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Bulletin 380

Development Policy & Practice

Outsourcing agriculturaladvisory servicesEnhancing rural innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Willem Heemskerk, Suzanne Nederlof and Bertus Wennink

Table of contents

ForewordAcknowledgementsList of acronyms

Part I Outsourcing agricultural advisory services for innovation

1 Background1.1 Justification and focus1.2 Rationale for this bulletin1.3 About this bulletin

2 Agricultural advisory service systems2.1 Trends affecting agricultural services in Sub-Saharan Africa2.2 Policy context2.3 Reasons for outsourcing public services2.4 Outsourcing mechanisms2.5 Options for outsourcing2.6 Enhancing pluralistic agricultural advisory service systems

3 Methodology and analytical framework3.1 Approach3.2 Selection of case studies3.3 Analytical framework3.4 Enabling environment for outsourcing3.5 Advisory service system and outsourcing3.6 Operations3.7 Performance of the outsourcing mechanisms

4 Lessons learned4.1 General4.2 Enabling environment4.3 Advisory services system4.4 Outsourcing operations4.5 Performance of a system using outsourcing

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5 Guidelines for enhancing advisory service provision through outsourcing5.1 Introduction5.2 Development of the context5.3 Management of the outsourcing system5.4 Capacity development5.5 Concluding remarks

ReferencesGlossary

Part II Case studies on outsourcing agricultural services

1 Outsourcing experiences in UgandaClesensio Tizikara, Prisca Ndagire, Francis Byekwaso and Dan Kisauzi

2 Outsourcing agricultural advisory services in MozambiqueCustodio Mucavele and Willem Heemskerk

3 Outsourcing agricultural advisory services in TanzaniaPeniel Mwasha and Willem Heemskerk

4 Outsourcing agricultural advisory services in MaliAboubacar Traoré and Bertus Wennink

About the authors and editors

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Foreword

Ms Kanaga, a dynamic east-African farmer in her late thirties, started cultivating riceduring the last growing season. However, before becoming involved in this newagricultural enterprise, she first spoke to her neighbours, who had also recentlyintroduced rice into their farming system. They gave her useful advice based on theirexperiences. She discussed information on how to start a rice enterprise in the VillageWomen’s Farmer Group, of which she is the vice-president. Some of the other membersshared their experiences on rice cultivation with the group. She also met with the localextension worker, who in turn invited her to attend a field day in a neighbouring village,where fellow farmers showed her fields on which they had practiced integrated riceproduction management. She later visited the extension worker at the District Office,where he explained to her the district-based services and NGOs available, as well as thevarious people she could ask for additional advice.

On the basis of all this advice, Ms Kanaga then decided that the time had come for herto start growing rice. She visited the local credit and savings bank in the nearby town toapply for a small loan to buy seed and other necessities, and the bank officer gave her alot of advice on how to later trade her rice and thus be able to repay her loan. With themoney she obtained, she went to the local supplier in an important marketing area about30 km from her village; this supplier also shared his knowledge on rice cultivation withher, based on his experience with the materials that he supplied.

Ms Kanaga also listened to a local radio programme on agriculture, where rice qualitywas discussed. She became slightly confused because the information given on the radioprogramme was different from the information she had received from the bank officerand the local supplier; she thus decided to visit one of the NGOs mentioned by theextension worker. She had to travel for about four hours to reach the NGO office but thevisit was worthwhile. This NGO, which focused on enterprise development, offered hera short course on bookkeeping so that she would be more capable of negotiating withtraders once her crops were harvested. While there she also visited the research stationwhere new varieties of rice are developed.

This example shows that information on agricultural activities can be difficult to obtainand can be confusing for some, as it comes from different sources, and is sometimescontradictory. It also shows that pluralistic agricultural advisory services (AAS) are areality, as indeed they are for most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Ms Kanagashows us yet another dimension of this situation when she explains: ‘Although I havevoted for the ward councillor (who is now a member of the District Council) and even

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though I participated in the Farmer Fora to determine priorities for our village, I believethe district authorities could play a more proactive role in making sure that theagricultural advisory services required by farmers are actually available throughout theentire district. I believe that the district authorities should not only coordinate theseactivities but also contract agencies to provide services that are required but are not yetavailable.’ Ms Kanaga shows us the need for coordinating services and ensuring theirgeneral availability, especially for farmers who may be less dynamic and motivated thanMs Kanaga. In analysing her story we realize that the context in which the coordinationof AAS emerges is one of decentralization, which requires a review of the roles played byfarmers and other stakeholders1.

A recent trend that we are currently observing is that agricultural advisory services aresometimes ‘outsourced’, or ‘contracted out’. Since outsourcing advisory services is a rathernew phenomenon there is little known about where it can be implemented, theconditions under which it is helpful, and how it can best be implemented. This bulletindiscusses several cases concerning extension outsourcing so that we can learn how suchoutsourcing can benefit farmers like Ms Kanaga.

This bulletin is based on case studies about the outsourcing of agricultural advisoryservices in Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and Mali. These experiences in Sub-SaharanAfrica are unique in the sense that they emphasize close collaboration andcomplementary elements between the public and private sectors. The bulletin is expectedto expand knowledge on outsourcing between practitioners and policy makers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lessons learned from the pilot programmes in the respectivecountries, as well as from Uganda’s National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS)Programme, are expected to guide the further expansion and up-scaling of outsourcingapproaches and systems.

The public sector in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond is generally looking for ways toinvolve the private sector in agricultural service provision and/or to privatize serviceprovision. We therefore hope and expect that lessons learned on outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services will provide important guidelines and direction for all kinds oforganizations involved in demand-driven service provision, be it in agriculture (credit,other financial services, staff training, input provision, etc.) or in the social sectors suchas rural health and education.

Willem HeemskerkSuzanne NederlofBertus Wennink

1 This is a fictional case.

Acknowledgements

The Royal Tropical Institute has developed this bulletin on the basis of lessons learnedby its partners in Sub-Saharan Africa. The documentation process, of which this bulletinis a final product, was only possible through the financial assistance of the DutchMinistry of Foreign Affairs and the time and other resources contributed by manyassociates in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.

This publication was developed on the basis of a number of case studies in Mozambique,Tanzania, Uganda and Mali, which were documented by authors from the respectivecountries. These authors are: Uganda Clesensio Tizikara, Prisca Ndagire, Francis Byekwaso and Dan Kisauzi;Tanzania Peniel Mwasha; Mozambique Custodio Mucavele; Mali Aboubacar Traoré.

Case studies could only be documented thanks to contributions by a wide variety ofstakeholders in the respective countries, who participated bilaterally with the referredauthors and through the local workshops.

This bulletin was peer reviewed by (and greatly benefited from the comments of )Prof. William M. Rivera, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Universityof Maryland, and Jacob Kampen, independent World Bank Consultant.

We thank Barbara Shapland for the language editing and Nadamo Bos for the graphicsediting.

Willem HeemskerkSuzanne NederlofBertus Wennink(Editors)

7Acknowledgements

List of acronyms

AAS Agricultural Advisory Services AFAAS African Forum for Agricultural Advisory ServicesAIS Agricultural Innovation SystemAKIS Agricultural Knowledge and Information SystemAOPP Association des Organisations Paysannes ProfessionnellesAPECAM Assemblée Permanente des Chambres d’Agriculture du MaliASDP Agricultural Sector Development Programme, TanzaniaASP (Agricultural) Advisory Service ProviderCAADP Comprehensive African Agricultural Development ProgrammeCBO Community-Based OrganizationCORDEMA Client-Oriented Research and Development Management ApproachCSO Civil Society OrganizationCRA Chambre Régionale d’AgricultureCTA Federation of Economic Associations in MozambiqueDADP District Agricultural Development PlanDDA District Agricultural Directorate (Mozambique)DESC District Extension Steering CommitteeDNEA National Directorate for Agricultural Extension (Mozambique)DNER National Directorate for Rural Extension (Mozambique)DPA Provincial Directorate of Agriculture (Mozambique)FAAP Framework for African Agricultural ProductivityFARA Forum for Agricultural Research in AfricaFFS Farmer Field SchoolsFO Farmer OrganizationHIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency

SyndromeICT Information and Communication TechnologyIFAD International Fund for Agricultural DevelopmentKIT Royal Tropical Institute, AmsterdamLGA Local Government AdministrationLLG Local Level GovernmentM&E Monitoring and EvaluationMDG Millennium Development GoalsMINAG Ministry of Agriculture (Mozambique)MoU Memorandum of UnderstandingMVIWATA National Farmer Organization Network, TanzaniaNAADS National Agricultural Advisory Service, Uganda

9List of acronyms

NAEP National Agricultural Extension Programme, TanzaniaNEPAD New Partnership for African DevelopmentNGO Non-Governmental OrganizationPASAOP Programme d’Appui aux Services Agricoles et aux Organisations PaysannesPIP Pilot Initiatives Programme (Tanzania)PMA Plan for Modernization of AgriculturePME Participatory Monitoring and EvaluationPROAGRI ‘Programa de Agricultura’, Sector-Wide Programme on Agriculture,

MozambiquePRONEA National Agricultural Extension Programme (Mozambique)R&D Research and DevelopmentSMART Specific, Measurable, Acceptable/Assignable, Realistic, Time-boundSME Small and Medium-sized EnterprisesSSA Sub-Saharan AfricaT&V Training and VisitTNA Training Needs AssessmentTOR Terms of ReferenceToT Transfer of TechnologyUNAC United Peasants Union, MozambiqueUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUSAID United States Agency for International DevelopmentUSD US DollarsWB World Bank

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Part IOutsourcing agricultural

advisory services forinnovation

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1 Background

This chapter explains the justification for this bulletin and the rationale that led to theoutsourcing of extension/advisory services becoming the main theme of this bulletin,which is divided into two parts. Part I presents the comparative analysis of lessons learnedconcerning the outsourcing of agricultural advisory services, both from available literaturesources as well as from the case studies. Part II details the results of the case studiesaccording to the outstanding issues enumerated in the section on the methodology andanalytical framework (Chapter 3) in Part I.

1.1 Justification and focus

Democratic development, decentralization and economic and political liberalization haveled to a more important role for local governments and a greatly increased number ofrural development stakeholders. One of these stakeholders, the private sector (includingprivate entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil societyorganizations), plays an increasingly important role in the rural development of Sub-Saharan Africa. A wide variety of both public and private service providers offer adviceto farmers, while farmers gain their knowledge from many different sources. Therefore,a pluralistic advisory service system is already a fact of life for many farmers in Africa.In the context of globalization, with an emphasis on competition, innovation is aprerequisite for agricultural development and hence rural development. Innovation isabout knowledge and is the result of an interactive learning process between stakeholders.As such, the diversity of local stakeholders is both a challenge and a major opportunityfor enhancing innovation. We use this ‘innovation system perspective’ for that part of theinnovation system that is represented by the agricultural advisory system.

Outsourcing services is a way of involving non-public services in pluralistic agriculturaladvisory systems. Responding to emerging needs expressed by farmers, such as demandsfor entrepreneurial and facilitation skills, knowledge about value chains and informationon sustainable production methods, requires a variety of stakeholders. Decentralizationis also a fact of life in many African countries, and it is anticipated that the public sectorwill increasingly focus on its key role of supporting inclusive local development andreducing poverty, as advocated by the national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs). An adequate level of investment to support such advisory service systems willtherefore remain necessary. One of the emerging questions is: How can the advisoryservices system improve and more efficiently enhance innovation, and contribute to theoverall strengthening of the innovation system?

Background

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This bulletin focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa because this sub-continent has the highestincidence of rural poverty while also offering considerable opportunities for enhancingagricultural development (NEPAD, 2002: FARA, 2006). Nevertheless, lessons onoutsourcing from other (sub) continents will also be used to analyse experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the World Bank (WB) has produced an edited volume of18 case studies entitled ‘Contracting for Agricultural Extension: International Case Studiesand Emerging Practices’ (Rivera and Zijp, 2002) and these findings are used in this study.A range of agricultural services seem important to agricultural innovation for rural develop-ment; particularly advisory, training and research services. The diversity of stakeholders isgreatest for advisory2 services and this explains the need to focus on precisely this service,hence the focus of this study. However, a pluralist system will invariably also lead todiversification in research and training services. The outsourcing of agricultural researchservices has been addressed in a previous bulletin, based on the experiences withcompetitive grant schemes at meso level (Heemskerk and Wennink, 2005).

1.2 Rationale for this bulletin

Resource-poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa have only benefited to a limited extentfrom many efforts to improve their livelihoods and enhance agricultural development(Chambers, 1987; Nederlof et al., 2004, Campilan, 2006). In the past these farmersreceived attention and assistance almost exclusively from the public sector in an oftenrather paternalistic manner. In the so-called ‘linear perspective’ governments, scientistsand extension workers assumed they ‘knew’ what was necessary to increase productionand productivity in order to help reduce rural poverty and secure household foodsupplies.

The acknowledgement that farmers have relevant knowledge, operate in unique localinnovation systems and set their own priorities for development and livelihood plans,is slowly leading to changes in the attitudes of public stakeholders in general, andagricultural service providers (both the public and private sectors) in particular. Thislocal and scientific knowledge can be accessed through interactive learning amongstakeholders. Indeed, the linear approach is now gradually being replaced by theagricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS) perspective (Wennink et al., 2006).Some countries, both inside and outside Sub-Saharan Africa, have recently taken afurther step towards an even broader ‘Agricultural Innovation System3’ (AIS). The AISpresents an appropriate framework for capturing the diversity of stakeholders that, ina given context, contributes to rural innovation through close and repeated interaction.

Farmers determine what they need and want on the basis of the information they receivethrough their ‘community networks and links’, such as contacts with fellow farmers, local

2 Agricultural advisory services help facilitate access to both tacit and codified knowledge and/orthrough interaction with information carriers.

3 An innovation system can be defined as a network of organizations, enterprises, and individualsthat focus on bringing new products, new processes, and new forms of organization into socialand economic use, together with the institutions and policies that affect their behaviour andperformance (World Bank, 2006).

and traditional authorities and elders, service providers, traders, etc. via posters, radiosand mobile phones, as well as from many other stakeholders and media sources.Resource-poor farmers in some countries also benefit from agricultural advisory servicesto develop their ideas into ‘business plans’ and to receive information on markets, ruralfinance and other services in order to realize these plans. Although most farmers are notyet in a position to fully, or even partly, pay for advisory services, with rapiddevelopments in information and communications they are increasingly in a position todecide what kind of services they want, where to get these services and from whom. Inresponse to this demand, the variety of advisory services provided by the public (andprivate) sectors is increasing rapidly and, in turn, is generating greater and morediversified demand for such services.

In this new context, service provision is no longer solely determined by the availablesupply or by the government, but increasingly by the users’ demands; the ‘service chain’is ‘reversing’ (i.e. from being orchestrated by the public sector to being driven by clientsand users). The outsourcing of agricultural services is an institutional innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa, which facilitates both the supply and demand for services in an enablingpolicy environment.

Over the last few years, outsourcing has become increasingly important in several Sub-Saharan African countries and this bulletin takes the opportunity to learn lessons thatcan further guide this process. We analyse some of the recent experiences with out-sourcing agricultural advisory services from an AIS perspective, and document the bestpractices and other lessons that can be learned. This analysis will subsequently betranslated into guidelines on how to outsource agricultural advisory services moreeffectively and efficiently.

1.3 About this bulletin

This bulletin is composed of two parts: Part I explains the background and presentsa synthesis of the lessons learned from the case studies, and Part II describes the casestudies in detail. After the introduction and rationale in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 startswith an overview of the existing literature on experiences with outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services. Chapter 3 briefly explains the methodology used to study the caseson outsourcing and discusses the analytical framework used to analyse the case studies.Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the best practices from an AIS perspective, as well asa synthesis of the lessons learned from each of the four case studies (Mali, Mozambique,Tanzania and Uganda). These lessons provide input for Chapter 5, which focuses onguidelines for outsourcing advisory services for agricultural development, as well as theconsequences in terms of the need for capacity-strengthening programmes as part ofpublic sector reform programmes.

Part II provides more detailed descriptions of policies and practices as well as the lessonslearned within the context of the four case studies on outsourcing experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa. The case studies were prepared by practitioners from the respectivecountries.

15Background

2 Agricultural advisory servicesystems

This chapter discusses the trends that affect rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa ingeneral, and the policy context that affects agricultural advisory services in particular.This section also includes the rationale for contracting out public services, and discussesprecisely what the term ‘outsourcing’ means. We then review the key elements of apluralistic agricultural advisory system before identify the emerging issues, which will bediscussed in subsequent chapters.

2.1 Trends affecting agricultural services in Sub-Saharan Africa

The setting for rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly changing due toincreased democracy, liberalization, decentralization, privatization, urbanization and the‘feminization’ of agriculture. These trends have led to more (and different) players beingactive on the scene, all involved in rural development, and all with their own knowledge,skills, experience and attitudes. These trends have also led to new opportunities due toinnovative ideas contributed by the wider range of stakeholders and their interaction, aswell as enhanced access to local and national/international markets.

In recent years, many agricultural programmes in Sub-Saharan African countries haveadopted the agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS) perspective, whichincludes a pluralistic approach to agricultural research and advisory services (Farrington,1994, Feder et al., 1999, Carney, 1998, van den Berg, 2001, Alex et al., 2002, Chapmanand Tripp, 2003, Chema et al., 2003, Qamar, 2005, WB, 2006). This implies that thesector is increasingly recognizing that private service agricultural service providers, andindeed many other stakeholders involved, have a role to play in the publicly supportedagricultural advisory services system. Investments in service provision through the publicsector consequently have to deal with the partnering of different service providers oroutsourcing of services at both national, regional and increasingly also at local (district)level. Research services are mostly contracted through competitive grant schemes atregional and/or agro-ecological zonal level and only rarely at district level (Heemskerkand Wennink, 2004). However, advisory services are increasingly contracted out at thedistrict level, within the framework of decentralization.

The private sector continues to invest more and more funds in the agricultural sector. Atthe same time, the public budgets for agricultural research and advisory services are underpressure, not only due to a lack of resources (from both the government and donors), but

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also due to rationalization (rightsizing or downsizing4 of the public sector), upwardaccountability and a result-oriented approach. Public investments in the agriculturalsector are also decreasing due to changes in the priorities of national governments andinternational donors, notwithstanding repeated references to the agricultural sector as‘the engine of development’ (NEPAD5, 2002; FARA6, 2006). Meanwhile the demandfor client-responsive and flexible market-oriented agricultural research and advisoryservices is increasing within the context of enhancing rural livelihoods and value chaindevelopment, with consumer demands for higher traceability, food safety and sustainableproduction being of specific concern (Neuchâtel Group, 2002, GTZ, 2006).

Opportunities to enhance the quality and intensify the provision of agricultural researchand advisory services to improve rural people’s livelihoods are being pursued in variousways.

Firstly, governments have embarked on a process of decentralization or devolution ofgovernance to the local (often district, sub-district and village) levels. Simultaneously, thecoordination of public service provision is often decentralized or delegated to the districtlevel (in the case of extension) or to the provincial/zonal level (in the case of research).Full decentralization (political, administrative and fiscal) results in integrated planningat the district level and the financing of extension services from the local governmentbudget, rather than from the agricultural budget managed by the central ministry(Rivera, 2001) Financing agricultural research services is often problematic because fullfinancial decentralization has not yet occurred, and research therefore continues to be atleast partly financed through the national agricultural budget. However, there areincreasing situations where adaptive research is also financed by local clients, such asdistrict governments or even farmers’ groups (FGs) through decentralized funds(Heemskerk and Wennink, 2005, De Silva, 2000, Vining and Globerman, 1998).

Secondly, the liberalization of the agricultural sector in terms of markets, input suppliesand other services, as well as the advancement of the role played by NGOs and farmers’organizations (FOs), have also led to increased pluralism of service providers at the locallevel. The demand for advisory services by farmers that goes beyond teaching them howto implement a specific technology has meant that extension workers now need differentskills, as they need to become ‘facilitators’ and ‘brokers’ of knowledge, rather than justacting as teachers.

Thirdly, farmers’ organizations and small-scale rural enterprises have been gainingstrength and have increased their countervailing power, in part due to the opportunitiesprovided by open markets and the presence of NGOs, which facilitates capacitydevelopment and empowerment. The stronger voice of farmers has led agricultural serviceproviders to emphasize client-responsive approaches in order to increase customerownership. This stronger client demand has also boosted the outsourcing of services by

4 Public sector reforms and the subsequent reduction in numbers of civil servants and the divestitureof some public sector activities.

5 The African Union’s New Partnership for African Development.6 The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa.

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public agencies on the basis of both cost-sharing and commercial arrangements, whichhas (in turn) also enhanced competition between service providers. Simultaneously theaccountability of public and private services being provided is shifting from upwardaccountability, as was the case under the old Training and Visit (T&V) system, to moredownward accountability, looking directly to client beneficiaries.

2.2 Policy context

Rural development has a high priority in all national Poverty Reduction StrategicProgrammes (PRSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to contribute to the firstMillennium Development Goal (MDG 1) – eradicate extreme hunger and poverty.Agriculture (including livestock production) is recognized by Africa’s leaders as the enginethat drives overall economic development. In the majority of African countries, mostenterprises are created in the agricultural sector, and these act as the driving forces behindrural economic development. The Africa Union’s New Partnership for AfricanDevelopment (NEPAD) has incorporated this view into its Comprehensive AfricaAgricultural Development Programme (CAADP), which (in addition to natural resourcemanagement), views market access, food security, agricultural research, technologydissemination and adoption as the main elements for one of the four pillars foragricultural development (NEPAD, 2002). Policy and institutional reforms, as well ascapacity strengthening, are key components of each of these pillars (see Box 1 forexamples of policies necessary to enable outsourcing). In relation to the agriculturaladvisory service system the emphasis in CAADP is on decentralizing responsibility inorder to improve responsiveness and accountability. The CAADP also anticipates thatservice quality will improve by outsourcing some, or all, field extension activities. Interms of funding, the main ambition is to develop cost-sharing mechanisms with theprivate sector and request users to pay fees to complement the national governmentbudgets.

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), in collaboration with others, hasdeveloped the Framework for African Agricultural Productivity (FAAP) as the mechanismthrough which the CAADP challenges can be achieved (FARA, 2006). FAAP highlightsthe importance of improving agricultural productivity, profitability and sustainabilitythrough innovation, which in turn will require institutional reforms, as well as enhancedand better coordinated total investment. Institutional reform requires both pluralism andintegration of agricultural research, extension and training services, based on principles ofsubsidiarity and the empowerment of all stakeholders. The enhanced empowerment offarmers and performance-based contractual arrangements that are accountable to clientfarmers and based on interactive learning (FARA, 2006) are therefore central to theFAAP. In this context, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly developingnational innovation policies and reviewing the role of the state in agricultural serviceprovision. Governments widely adopted to withdraw from marketing, input supply andcredit services. The opening up of public research and advisory services systems toparticipation by other stakeholders is a more recent development.

From an AIS perspective, with a focus on interaction between stakeholders, developmentrequires new thinking and a paradigm shift in relation to the role of the state. The state

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contributes to the strengthening of the AIS and ‘inclusive’7 agricultural development. It isimportant to note that private stakeholders are also playing an increasingly important rolein agricultural advisory services, particularly when it comes to value chain development.However, the public sector needs to strengthen its central role in funding, regulations(e.g. quality assurance), supervising contracts, as well as in contributing to capacitydevelopment and access to knowledge for private local agricultural service providers. Inrecent years, several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have experimented with outsourcingagricultural advisory services at the local level (through pilot programmes), as well as withthe scaling up of these pilot activities to cover increasingly larger areas and greaternumbers of farmer beneficiaries.

Agricultural services were previously mainly provided through the public sector, forexample via applied and adaptive research institutes and national agricultural extensionprogrammes and organizations. As explained above, it is widely recognized that theagricultural sector develops through the introduction of new ideas, approaches andtechnologies, and that this requires technical, organizational and institutional innovation

Box 1 Examples of policies required to enable outsourcing

• Flanking policies for advisory services to impact agricultural innovation, e.g. policies on inputsupply and marketing.

• Reducing barriers to the entry of private service providers by analysing existing providers andaddressing problems such as ‘crowding out’, unstable policies, lack of policy clarity, limitedcareer opportunities, lack of strong associations, lack of rural infrastructure, dependencymentality, poor understanding of diverse rural needs, bureaucracy, and by eliminating theirrational taxing of private enterprise (for creating and operating a private enterprise).

• Promoting private service providers, as well as through capacity development, investment etc.• Developing explicit outsourcing procedures (transparency, legal contracts, operation manuals,

clear terms of reference (TOR), advertising, setting up selection committees, arranging theprompt signing of contracts, smooth financial flows, and timely responses to feedback).

• Dealing with the conflicting and complementary interests of both the public and privatesectors.

• Comparative cost-efficiency and impact effectiveness measures (making public serviceproviders more cost-effective and providing better incentives for performance).

• Enhancing social inclusion and equity (how to provide pro-poor services) through client-stratification and building on the special ability of NGOs for contracting farmers in remoteareas.

• Dealing with the trade-offs between effectiveness (not selecting the poorest farmers) andefficiency (not serving farmers in remote areas), and the need for inclusion and equity.

• Developing capacity within the public sector to manage the procurement of services,particularly at the local government level where it is often weak.

• Facilitating the planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of service provision inagricultural innovation involving all stakeholders (Leeuwis and Van den Ban, 2006).

• Empowering client-organizations, including with regard to the control of resources in orderto enhance downward accountability.

Source: Adapted from Birner et al., 2006a, 2006b.

7 i.e. not leaving anyone behind.

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(WB, 2007). The development of such integrated innovation models is a multi-stakeholder process that requires interactive learning and the exchange of tacit andcodified8 knowledge between all stakeholders in the AIS. One of the key questions is:How can this shared knowledge be mobilized and made available to benefit all, includingthose who are poor and/or marginalized? In order for economic growth to lead totangible development benefits for all actual and potential beneficiaries, the public sectormust play a central role in providing pro-poor services.

In the public domain, outsourcing has been common in the public works sub-sector, aswell as increasingly being used in government offices, such as for car maintenance,photocopying services, etc. However, a distinction should be made between outsourcingservices and the privatization of services, as in the case of fertilizer supply or seedproduction. The outsourcing of agricultural advisory services by central and localgovernments, with ‘calls’ for proposals or tenders being issued by farmer and communityorganizations to both private for-profit and private not-for-profit organizations, is anincreasingly important component of Agricultural Sector Development Programmes(ASDPs). Such trends towards outsourcing are led by national policies and are stronglysupported by both multilateral (e.g. IFAD, World Bank) and bilateral donors.Outsourcing practices are particularly interesting in terms of their effect on enhancingpro-poor economic development, which is seen as an important mandate of the publicsector.

Contracting out agricultural advisory services usually involves collaboration between(local) governments, service providers and beneficiaries. Governments increasingly focuson the public ‘core’ functions (planning, regulation and funding) while leaving theimplementation of activities to autonomous public and private service providerscontracted by the public sector, but based on demand and procurement by farmers(groups) and other beneficiaries. The difference between funding (through sectorprogrammes), procuring (by local government on behalf of farmers) and supplying (byautonomous public services or the private sector) agricultural advisory services isincreasingly becoming more distinct.

Outsourcing agricultural services for innovation (such as extension and adaptive researchservices) makes it possible to take advantage of all existing private sector talent, capacity,potential and experience available in the field without eliminating the essential roles ofthe public sector. An advantage of such outsourcing is that it allows the state toconcentrate on its core business of ‘governing’ and that provides the opportunity to keepthe public sector lean and small. The state can focus more effectively on policies, designand M&E, as opposed to direct interventions, while expanding the coverage and,potentially, the impact of any given R&D services programme.

Agricultural advisory service systems

8 Codified knowledge refers to written and other forms of documented knowledge that is exchangedthrough the media; tacit or ‘not-documented’ knowledge is exchanged through informalinteractions between stakeholders.

2.3 Reasons for outsourcing public services

The top reasons for outsourcing in industry have been quoted as: 1 cost reduction; 2 focus on core business.

However, other valid reasons can include an improved quality of services, enhanced marketorientation, the introduction of new and innovative ideas and approaches, specifically inagricultural service provision (Thompson, Inova solutions, Douthwaite et al., 2001). Thestated reasons for outsourcing public-funded services include the enhanced demand foragricultural advisory services, the emphasis on new approaches, such as value chaindevelopment to boost economic development or the opportunity of contracting providerswith knowledge and skills that are not always available in the public sector. From an AISperspective, involving multiple organizations in agricultural advisory services canpotentially lead to greater opportunities for interactive learning, and thus contribute toenhanced expertise and quality of service provision. Motivation will also depend on theconcerns regarding the effectiveness of agricultural advisory service provision and theefficiencies to be gained by outsourcing such services.

The trend towards outsourcing is presumed to take place in an equitable and sustainablemanner, and to be pro-poor by contributing to sustainable rural poverty reduction.Within the context of this bulletin, outsourcing arrangements for advisory services aretherefore expected to: 1 improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service provision for enhanced pro-poor

economic development; 2 involve an increased number of stakeholders (particularly from the private sector); and 3 improve the accountability of service providers.

Traditional ways of funding public advisory services are top-down approaches, and theinternal chain of accountability for performance is a bottom-up system; so service usersare excluded from this chain. Reversing the financial flow by providing funds directly tothe producer to contract services from providers can change the entire incentive andaccountability structure.

2.4 Outsourcing mechanisms

The outsourcing mechanism originates from the private sector, particularly theInformation, Communication and Technology (ICT) sector (Greaver, 1999). Outsourcingis a business process term that refers to the contracting out of tasks and services that areeither not (or no longer) considered to be the core business of a particular enterprise, orthat can be achieved more efficiently by contracting specialized agencies. Outsourcing isthen an arrangement whereby an enterprise enters into a contract with an externalsupplier to provide goods and/or services that were previously provided internally. Thecontracted freelancer performs a specified task (or tasks) for an organization when thatorganization does not have the time or expertise to fulfil the task itself, or when theorganization recognizes that there are alternative suppliers who can perform the task moreeffectively, efficiently and/or cheaply. In the case of agricultural advisory services,

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outsourcing is a way of contracting private expertise (including NGOs and farmers’organizations) into an agricultural advisory services system that mainly deals with publicgoods.

Outsourcing is often combined with competitive tendering for the contract under whichthe goods and services are to be provided (Griffith and Figgis, 1997). Businesses of alltypes, both large and small, have been outsourcing activities for many years and havebenefited from it; they know the value that outsourcing brings to their organization, asa tool to enhance and enlarge the business. Organizations that have repeatedly usedoutsourcing over a substantial period know that to sustain the positive benefits that itbrings to the organization, it is also important to have a well-managed plan of action forthe outsourcing process. This includes deciding which activities or tasks to outsource,which companies should be hired to perform these tasks, how to manage the outsourced‘project’, how to agree on payment terms, and how to ensure that the desired results areachieved.

Box 2 presents the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing (according to Griffithand Figgis, who base their analysis on the ICT sector).

2.5 Options for outsourcing

Four options can be distinguished for providing agricultural advisory services (Rivera andQamar, 2003) and within each option there are multiple ways of providing these services: • public-sector extension service (public financing, public service provision, such as

under the former national T&V (training and visit) extension programmes);• private-sector extension service through outsourcing using state funding (public

financing, private provision exemplified by the case studies reviewed in this bulletin);• private-sector extension service through direct ‘donor’ funding (be it with NGOs or

private companies, such as through international donors, NGOs and international


Box 2 The advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing

The possible advantages of outsourcing include the potential for: cost savings; increasedaccountability of service providers through contract specifications and performancemeasurement; better work and management practices; wider access to skills, knowledge ortechnology; more efficient use of capital and equipment; better service quality; greater flexibilityin services; local industry development; and fewer industrial relations issues.

The potential disadvantages of outsourcing (government services) include: reducedaccountability of government for contracted services; loss of privacy and confidentiality ofpersonal information; collusive tendering or other tendering problems; loss of control by thegovernment over the (quality of ) contracted services; reductions in the quality of services; thecosts of outsourcing; savings to government resulting from losses to other groups, rather thanfrom actual increases in efficiency; and, negative effects on employment levels and on the wagesand conditions of employees working for contractors.

Source: Griffith and Figgis, 1997.

private agencies, increasingly bypassing the public sector extension by contractingservices directly; and,

• private-sector extension services based on direct private funding (e.g. ‘contractfarming’).

The provision of advisory services by private companies can be either via for-profitcompanies, not-for profit companies or civil society organizations such as farmers’ groupsand community-based organizations.

Outsourcing of agricultural advisory services can use several modalities such as(Anderson, 2007):• outsourcing by a national agency, for efficiency reasons, and thereby avoiding

duplication in different sub-regions and enhancing effectiveness, involving strongnational/international service providers such as national commodity boards, donoragencies, etc.);

• the contracting of advisory services by the local government at district level(Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda);

• contracting and procurement by client organizations using grants from the publicsector, such as in Uganda and in the Farmer Field School (FFS) Programmes (Federet al., 2003, De Silva, 2000);

• ‘partnership funds’, which are used to stimulate and develop public-privatepartnerships, as well as other forms of public-private collaborations; and,

• privatization of extension services, where government-funded contracts are graduallyreduced through increased cost-sharing by farmers.

2.6 Enhancing pluralistic agricultural advisory service systems

Various authors have concluded that agricultural advisory service systems are at risk ofbeing ineffective if they do not involve all key stakeholders in the service provision systemand thereby contribute to strengthening agricultural innovation systems (Birner et al.,2006a, 2006b; Hagmann et al., 2002; Rivera et al., 2005). Analytical frameworks havebeen designed to analyse AIS in general (WB 2006, CTA/MERIT/KIT, 2005) andagricultural advisory service systems in particular (Engel et al., 1987, Birner et al., 2006a,2006b; Hagmann et al., 2002; Probst and Hagmann, 2003, Anderson, 2007; Chipeta,2006).

Important challenges for the agricultural service providers, and indeed the entireinnovation system, are listed below.

1 Retaining the best of a learning knowledge ‘system’ and a competitive knowledge ‘market.’An outsourcing system and, in particular, the tender procedures can lead tofragmentation through competition in relation to the AKIS and hence affect thelearning mode which is central in the AIS. Competition eliminates service providersand they can collapse (or even disappear) as a result of severe competition. In suchcases, the AIS cannot maximize the interactive learning opportunities due to this lossof knowledge. The closure of public sector R&D institutions in parts of Africa (Pardeyet al., 2006) is an example of this actually happening. This can lead to a fragmented

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institutional memory and to learning-for-innovation barriers (secrecy and evenpatenting). The ability to exclude and subtract, or rivalry (see also Table 1), areconditions for developing a knowledge market but, in order to reach this state,transaction costs can become prohibitive. It is important to determine if this is dueto a failing market or another phenomenon (Leeuwis and van den Ban, 2006;Steenhuijsen Piters et al., 2003). The challenge is to introduce elements of competitionin one phase of the process and effective interactive learning, also between serviceproviders, in another phase of the same process.

2 Changing from upward accountability to partnerships and interaction. An analysis of theAIS leads to the identification of the various stakeholders, their roles and performancesas well as their capacity to interact and to invest in the opportunities for interactivelearning in the system. A strategy can be developed for agricultural innovationdevelopment that includes the outsourcing of agricultural research and advisoryservices. Outsourcing strategies are aiming at complementarity, initiating flexibleprogrammes to contract extension and fostering public-private partnerships. Thechallenge lies in developing these new partnerships effectively and expandingbeneficiary ownership of advisory services by reversing funding and accountability,from a supply-driven knowledge chain to a demand-driven knowledge system basedon participatory M&E (Birner et al., 2006a, 2006b).

3 Coping with the risks when opening up the system to private service providers. One riskconcerns the ‘substitution’ risk, where other goods are provided rather than the highestpriority goods, as they are easier to market, which could include a stronger focus onmarket-oriented agriculture and less emphasis on subsistence/food farming, therebyincreasing the vulnerability of many smallholder farmers. Other risks include the‘relocation’ risk (clients obtain goods elsewhere without market structure), ‘exclusion’risk (certain groups are excluded), ‘market’ and ‘continuity’ risks (some importantproviders may go bankrupt, as has already happened in Latin American ResearchCentres (Leeuwis and Van den Ban, 2006).


Table 1 Classification of agricultural goods and services

Type of goods Excludabilityand services Low HighRivalry Low Public goods Toll goods

Production, marketing and Production, marketing and management information that management informationis widely applicable and accessible

High Common-pool goods Private goodsInformation embodied in locally Client-specific information or available resources or inputs adviceInformation on organizational Information embodied in development commercially available inputs

Source: Adapted from Umali and Schwartz, 1994.

4 Balancing and coordinating the way in which national and local priorities are addressed.Special policy concerns may dictate a need to focus activities on a particular area,problem or sub-sector. The levels and types of interaction between the demand,formulated through national policies and from farms and firms, need to be evaluatedand balanced. The type of service provided to the various target groups will varybetween organizations implementing activities within the same region or province,taking account of issues such as complementarity, comparative advantage andcompetition, which will require joint planning and coordination.

5 Strengthening ‘good governance’ of the system. The transaction costs of outsourcing, inparticular, can get out of hand through favouritism (i.e. not opening up the process toall service providers), corruption and political interference. This requires clientempowerment to replace the controlling powers of the state by providing mechanismsfor downward accountability to the users, capacity strengthening of agricultural serviceproviders and local governments, as well as the development of demand authenticitywithin farmers’ organizations (Chapman and Tripp, 2003, Wennink et al., 2007).

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3 Methodology and analyticalframework

This chapter discusses the methods used to collect our data on outsourcing agriculturalservices and the analytical framework used to analyse the case studies. This in turnprovides the basis for deriving this bulletin’s lessons on outsourcing.

3.1 Approach

The case study methodology offers a means of learning about a complex situationthrough extensive description and contextual analysis. The results articulate how and whya particular situation occurred, and what one might usefully explore in similar situations.The case studies on outsourcing experiences for this bulletin were documented bynational practitioners in the respective countries (see ‘about the authors’ in Part II). Casestudies can generate a great deal of data that may defy straightforward analysis. For thepurpose of this study the case studies are largely qualitative, as they are based on theexperiences of stakeholders; best practices are documented and used to extract lessonslearned. The papers are based on experiences with outsourcing, specifically on thearrangements for agricultural services provision for smallholders at the local level. Thethree main groups involved are: 1 those who express the demand, often farmers and their organizations; 2 the local government; and, 3 the agricultural advisory service providers (public or private).

The two-year process towards preparing for and completing this bulletin included thefollowing steps: 1 implementing a desk study to find existing information on outsourcing advisory

services;2 identifying existing cases and potential authors to study the experience of these cases,

based on a variety of criteria (see Section 3.2);3 defining the main issues in outsourcing, together with the authors, through e-mail

communication, bilateral discussions during field visits, and translating this into ananalytical framework;

4 implementing field work for the case studies, which included interviewingstakeholders, focus group discussions, plus direct and participatory observations;

5 organizing local multi-stakeholder workshops to validate the information obtained andfurther discuss issues and main lessons learned (workshops took place in Mali,Mozambique and Uganda, with participants from the national Ministries ofAgriculture, the national extension organizations, private and NGOs, service providersand farmers’ organizations);

27Methodology and analytical framework

6 extracting best practices and lessons learned for each country on the basis of theanalytical framework;

7 comparative analysis of the case studies using the analytical framework; 8 translating the lessons learned into guidelines for outsourcing advisory services;9 international and national peer review of the final document.

3.2 Selection of case studies

Only a few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have introduced the concept of outsourcingadvisory service provision through public-funded national programmes. Experience withnational outsourcing programmes is limited to countries such as Uganda but, from thelate 1990s onwards, pilot programmes on outsourcing advisory services were also startedin countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania and Mali.

The case studies were selected on the basis of existing documentation on evaluations ofthese pilot and national programmes. Other selection criteria included the diversity ofexperience presented by countries with diverse geographic and language backgrounds,and the familiarity by KIT staff with these ongoing cases, as well as the availability ofauthors to document these case studies and the potential for using the achievements ofthese programmes in follow-up phases and up-scaling efforts.

Authors were selected on the basis of existing contacts with KIT, as well as their relativeimpartiality, being either retired from the programme or never having been directlyinvolved in the implementation of the outsourcing programmes. Terms of reference(TORs) were provided to the authors (see Box 3); during the preparation phase the KITstaff (i.e. editors of this bulletin) had regular e-mail contact with the authors of the casestudies.

The following case studies were selected: • Tanzania: NAEP II Pilot Initiatives Programme (PIP).• Mozambique: Outsourcing programme PROAGRI I (DNEA and INCAJU Pilot

Programmes).• Uganda: NAADS outsourcing programme.• Mali: PASAOP outsourcing of agricultural extension (with particular focus on one

pilot district).

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Box 3 TORs for case study authors

• Collect documentation on outsourcing experiences at the local level, with a specific focus onoutsourcing agricultural advisory services for innovation (for example extension, adaptiveresearch).

• Analyse the information and formulate challenges to improve the impact of outsourcing onlivelihoods, by using the analytical framework.

• Organize small stakeholder workshops.• Combine the findings into a case study report.

Source: This study.

Table 2 and Part II of this bulletin provide a more detailed description of the selectedcase studies.

Table 2 Short description of selected outsourcing case studies

Case Tanzania Mozambique Uganda MaliStatus Pilot lessons ready Pilot ready for up- National Pilot ready for up-

for up-scaling in scaling in programme from scaling in 2007ASDP in 2007 PROAGRI II/ 2001 until 2009

PRONEA 2007 and follow-upNational Decentralization Decentralization Privatization and Decentralizationenabling and and pluralist value chain and rationalization environment deconcentration advisory service perspective of the Ministry

provision Supply of Large public sector, Govt. extension Declining public Public sector, AAS but also similar size 1/3; public sector, taken over parastatals and

private sector (e.g. NGOs) 1/3; by private sector private non-profit and private, 1/3 sector

Demand for Through Farmer District Through Farmer Through village AAS Fora at district level Consultative Fora and at sub- FGs/FOs and

Councils county level District consultations

Main ASDP PROAGRI II NAADS PASAOP financial (Government, WB, (Government, (Government, WB (Government, WB support IFAD) IFAD, 7 bilateral and bilaterals) and bilateral donors)

donors)Main trigger Deconcentration of NGO and private Private sector Involvement of local

advisory service sector capacity involvement in governments and and demand chain development FOs in agricultural

servicesFocus Livelihoods and Livelihood and Value chain Livelihoods (and

chains chains chains)Source: This study.

3.3 Analytical framework

General context

The analytical framework allows us to look at agricultural advisory services from an AISperspective. An AIS involves a far broader set of stakeholders that provide services to theclients within the sector than the traditional research and extension agencies. We assumethat looking at outsourcing experiences from this perspective will provide us withadditional insights and lessons about agricultural advisory systems and how to make thesebeneficial for the rural population. Innovation takes place throughout the entire economyand innovations often do not have their origin in formal science and technology (S&T)nor are they exclusively technical (Elliott, 2004; Anderson and Feder, 2004). Severalauthors assert that applying the AIS perspective results in the following features (WB,2006, CTA/MERIT/KIT, 2005):


• A focus on innovation (rather than on research or extension as such) as its organizingprinciple and the concept of innovation can be used in its broad sense, i.e. theactivities and processes associated with generating, producing, distributing, adaptingand using new technical, institutional, organizational, or managerial knowledge.

• Conceptualizing research and extension as parts of the wider process of innovation; ithelps identify the nature of the stakeholders involved and the scope of their activities,as well as the wider set of relationships in which research and/or extension areembedded.

• Recognition of the importance of both technology/knowledge producers andtechnology/knowledge users, as well as the continuum of knowledge production anduse, and by acknowledging that their roles are both context-specific and dynamic, itescapes the polarized debate between proponents of the theories of technology ‘push’versus demand ‘pull’.

• Recognition that the institutional context of the organizations involved (andparticularly the wider environment that governs the nature of their relationships)promotes dominant interests and determines the outcomes of the system as a whole.This aspect is extremely important for introducing a focus on poverty. The frameworkthus provides a means of examining and revealing which agendas are being promoted,highlighting those arenas in which the voice of the poor can be promoted. Organizedfacilitation becomes a core intervention at all levels to unleash the cooperative energyof stakeholders through a compelling vision to work (and learn) together.

• Recognition that innovation systems are social systems. In other words, the focus isnot only on the degree of connectivity between the different elements, but also on thelearning and adaptive processes that make such systems dynamic and evolutionary.

Inevitably, transforming service provision mechanisms becomes a multi-stakeholderchange and learning process (Hagmann et al., 2002). This change cannot be imposedfrom the outside, but requires internalization and depends on the free will and energy ofthe various stakeholders.

Components

Most authors (Hagmann et al., 2002: Birner et al., 2006a, 2006: Ribeiro et al., 2006;Engel and Salomon, 1997) recognize the complexity of the institutional configurations ininnovation systems. Analysis of the effects of particular changes in such systems, such asoutsourcing of advisory services, will consequently focus on both service provision anddemand groups of stakeholders, as well as those responsible for creating a facilitatingenabling environment. Somewhere between institutional configurations for innovation andperformance of the system lays the processes and functioning of the system, both in termsof administrating the outsourcing tool and the capacities of the primary stakeholders, plusits contribution to linking stakeholders and their interaction. Four main componentstherefore form the basis of the framework for analyzing the use of outsourcing inagricultural advisory services in the innovation system context (see Box 4). These are:• the enabling environment for outsourcing;• the advisory system and outsourcing of services;• outsourcing operations; • performance of the advisory system and services.

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Box 4 Framework for analysing the use of the outsourcing tool inagricultural advisory services

1 The enabling environment for outsourcing• Policy and legislation: innovation policy, decentralization, private sector capacity, and

rationale for outsourcing• Institutional reform: deconcentration of sectors, role of other stakeholders• Competency development: changing roles (state and non-state stakeholders)

2 The advisory system and outsourcing servicesº Organizing the demand:

• Client differentiation and inclusion• Quality of demand• Articulation of demand• Managing diversity and demand aggregation

º Responding to the demand:• Type of services• Organizational capabilities versus pluralism• Platform establishment and coordination• Competency and capacity

º Role and responsibilities of the various stakeholders

3 Outsourcing operationsº Procurement:

• Identification of priorities• Tender or call for proposals

º Funding:• Co-funding arrangements• Competition• Length of contracts• Disbursement arrangements• Incentives

º Implementation:• M&E (performance indicators)• Long-term versus short-term issues• Exit strategies• Interactive learning mechanisms

4 Performance of the advisory system and services• Efficiency and effectiveness• Performance of agricultural service providers• Sustainability of the system

Source: Adapted from Birner et al., 2006a; CTA/MERIT/KIT, 2005; Hagmann et al., 2002; andRibeiro et al., 2006.

3.4 Enabling environment for outsourcing

Policy context

Essential conditions for the successful delegation and outsourcing of agricultural researchand advisory services for rural innovation include policies, legislation and a conduciveinstitutional environment (Birner et al., 2006a, 2006b). Examples of this include thepolitical will to delegate, which implies a change in the role of the state and also thepolitical trust to promote extension and adaptive research reform. Reforms requireadequate and timely funding, willingness to cooperate with non-state stakeholders inthe AIS and to make services truly client-responsive and demand-driven. Some specificpolicies (see e.g. Box 1) must be in place in order to effectively support the publicoutsourcing modalities. A policy decision to open up the knowledge market by bringingin other stakeholders that also use public funds is crucial and must be accompanied byother policy measures.

In order to achieve proper functioning of outsourcing these services, special attentionshould be paid to a number of core issues for which a vision needs to be developed. Forexample: the requirements of the poor, women and marginalized groups; differentiationin modalities for low and high agricultural potential zones, livelihood systems, valuechains; plus maintaining links between (national and international) research and a varietyof public and private advisory services.

Institutional reform

The government needs to clearly understand the intricacies of systems for outsourcingservices as well as the crucial need to separate funding, procuring and supply ofagricultural advisory services. The public sector is shifting towards a more coordinating,regulatory and funding role, with the private sector (in the broadest sense) evolving intoan implementation role. Clarity of these new roles forms the basis for effectivecollaborative planning and conflict management, with the government being responsiblefor public aspects (such as training administrators of agricultural advisory services,supervising contracts, programme M&E and overall strategies), with the private sectorhandling goods and services of an increasingly private nature (such as information oninputs, markets and value-chain-related services).

System competency development

A wide variety of agricultural advisory services are required (from the private sector, civilsociety and farmers’ organizations) in order to ensure that there is adequate capacity inpluralistic service provision, as well as the capacity to choose between these providers.Any perceived lack of choice needs to be addressed and normally ‘invisible’ or unknownproviders and services need to be promoted adequately. The required capacity to provideadvisory services needs to be developed. At the same time a functioning system alsorequires the effective demand for public and private advisory services to be strengthened.

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Governments usually continue to provide funding for most contractual arrangements butpublic-private partnerships (PPPs) and cost-sharing arrangements between governments,farmers and the private sector are increasingly prevalent. Cost-sharing schemes can begreatly facilitated when farmers are involved in selecting, monitoring and evaluatingthe extension agents, and in determining the scope and content of the programme.A capacity for contract M&E is crucial, and time-based milestones should be included inall contracts. This requires both organizational capacities and enhanced skills of farmers’organizations and their staff.

3.5 Advisory service system and outsourcing

The main categories of stakeholders in the AAS are those demanding the services, theservice providers themselves, the parties leading the governance of the system (such aslocal and central governments), and the facilitators of the interaction between supply anddemand. Local governments can facilitate the learning process between advisory serviceorganizations and FOs, as well as with other services or with contracting these servicesout, for example to NGOs.

Organizing the demand

Community-based organizations (CBOs) and farmers’ organizations are critical in voicingtheir demand for agricultural advisory services. These organizations provide economies ofscale and a mechanism for promoting small farmers’ interests. The existence, as well asthe competence, of these organizations is therefore important in dealing with agriculturalservice providers. In general, farmers’ education and training are crucial in enhancingagricultural development over the long term. Other important elements in organizing thedemand for advisory services include, for example, the level at which rural disadvantagedgroups are included, the involvement of farmer innovators, and an emphasis onorganizational and institutional innovation, besides technical innovation (Hagmann et al.,2002). Community characteristics, such as access to resources (financial, market andnatural), capacity (level of education), and social and gender roles (level of cooperationand emancipation) are key conditions for effectively expressing this demand. Thedynamics of the community and its farming households, in terms of livelihood capacitydevelopment (i.e. social, human, financial, physical and natural capital), decision-makingcapacities on innovation and willingness to change practices, are all instrumental indeveloping effective demand.

As a consequence of market liberalization and more widespread democracy, the voice ofthe smallholder farmer is increasingly being heard. After all, farmers do have the ‘veto-power’ to accept or reject the ‘technologies’ proposed (by either using or not using them).Articulating this demand for services requires further capacity strengthening of farmers’organizations and CBOs. In turn, this will require large-scale emancipation of the ruralpoor and other disadvantaged groups, such as rural women and people affected by theHIV/AIDS pandemic. Better articulation of this demand will increase rural householdownership of the development processes and, eventually, will enhance the quality (i.e.relevance and adequate analysis of needs) of this expression of the demand. At the sametime, individual demands are aggregated at higher levels, which involve the risk of


overlooking the priorities for the rural-disadvantaged (Hagmann et al., 2002). Specificpoints that will therefore need attention include: 1 client differentiation and inclusion; 2 quality of demand; 3 articulation of that demand; and, 4 management of demand diversity and aggregation (Wennink et al., 2007).

The key questions here are: 1 who is facilitating the development of this demand and how is it achieved? and 2 can such services be part of the outsourcing modality?

Responding to the demand

The response to the expressed demand is framed by the type of services available, theorganization and management capability, the pluralism in the services provided, theexistence of stakeholder platforms and other coordination mechanisms, as well as theoverall competencies and capacities (Hagmann, et al., 2002). The response is furtherdetermined by the characteristics of the agricultural advisory services in governmentstructures, the management qualities and the advisory methods used. In particular, thelatter aspect shows a broad diversity, e.g. approaches focusing on technology transferthrough T&V, participatory extension, FFS programmes, ICT-based extension, andschool programmes.

a Addressing the demandA major advantage of outsourcing systems is the opportunity to involve a variety ofstakeholders that contribute to interactive learning for agricultural innovation. Privateresearch service suppliers, for example, might include multinationals, national companies,family enterprises, commodity boards, non-profit NGOs, individual farmers and farmers’groups.

b From extension to advisory servicesThe goals of agricultural extension have traditionally included transferring informationfrom the global knowledge pool and from national and local adaptive researchprogrammes to farmers, enabling them to clarify their own goals and opportunities,educating them on how to make better decisions, and stimulating desirable agriculturaldevelopment.

Agricultural advisory services aim to become more client-oriented and demand-driventhan the traditional extension services. Effective advisory services therefore involveadequate and timely facilitation of access by farmers to a broad range of relevantinformation sources. The emphasis has recently shifted to interactive learning between allstakeholders, in a system in which the extension workers facilitate the interaction betweenfarmers and all the relevant stakeholders – from research and advisory services, through tomarket and financial services. Furthermore, most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa currentlyreceive information from many sources. Public service providers are one source, but arenot necessarily the most knowledgeable or efficient. Therefore, although public advisoryservices can contribute to the productive efficiency of the agricultural sector, the virtues

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and limitations of alternative and complementary options should also be considered byassessing their cost-effectiveness.

c Public–private partnershipsAn important indicator for the degree of pluralism in the mode of operation is thenumber of partnerships and contractual arrangements with a variety of clients (i.e.‘contracting in’). Separating public funding and service provision has created greateropportunities for diversification in implementation. Strong emphasis is given to public-private partnerships, with special attention being paid to complementarity. Services forcash crops are often contracted out to the private sector, while the crops grown primarilyfor subsistence are being addressed by the public sector, although usually cash andsubsistence crops are both integral parts of a farmers’ livelihood (Steenhuijsen Piters et al.,2005; DFID, 1997).

Private service providers operating in the open knowledge market mainly provide servicesas a private element. However, agricultural advisory services for smallholders areessentially public goods; they are nevertheless already subject to considerable outsourcingby government to the private sector. Developing a demand for small-scale enterprise-specific advisory services, where the extension officer is a business development advisor,often contributes to the privatization of advisory services (see Table 2).

Roles and responsibilities

The interaction between the expressed demand by local communities and farminghouseholds and the response by municipalities and districts requires both multi-stakeholder platforms at the district level as well as large-scale effective empowerment atthe community level. At the same time, a need exists to support the generation ofconducive responses at the provincial or national levels; e.g. networking that contributesto policy change and enhanced organizational development. Therefore outsourcingservices leads to a change of roles and responsibilities within the agricultural advisoryservices system (see Table 3).

The state’s role changes from providing services to ensuring the quality of servicesprovided under contract, when publicly financed public services are outsourced. TheM&E (or quality-control function) extends beyond contract oversight to addressing issuessuch as the effectiveness of links between service providers and support services thatensure, for example, the quality of advice (i.e. service provider certification, R&Dtraining, and M&E). The principal risk is that private contractors will fail to achieve acontracted services objective for a project, although comparison with the public sectormay show that they run an even higher risk in failing to meet the given objectives.Several measures can help to minimize this risk, such as conducting a comprehensiveselection of proposals, limiting the number and scope of projects, and insisting onadequate monitoring arrangements.


3.6 Operations

General

Procurement, funding and the actual provision of advisory services are key operations inoutsourcing (Birner et al., 2006). In agricultural advisory service systems and AISs,system functions are implemented by different stakeholders and through differentinstitutional configurations (Engel and Salomon, 1997). These functions relate to thesupply of, and demand for, agricultural services, as well as to facilitating the interactionsand the interactive learning that takes place between stakeholders (Hagmann et al.,2002). Special attention should be given to the interactions between the key stakeholdersand the institutions that govern and support these, as well as to the facilitation strategiesused.

Three main operational issues need to be addressed with regard to all modalities ofoutsourcing (see Section 2.5) and advisory service contracting in general: • Performance-based contracting. Performance needs to be included in contracts by

establishing monitorable targets, both for public and private sector providers.• Competitive bidding/selection. Competition can be used to select private service

providers. However, negotiation and coordination may be more fruitful whencontracting farmers’ organizations and public-sector agencies.

• Inclusion in outsourcing. One of the major dilemmas is that the users who mosturgently need agricultural advisory services are often the weakest stakeholders in thecontracting process. These users often cannot prepare good proposals and/or provide

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Table 3 Changing roles and responsibilities

Stakeholder group Old roles New rolesCentral government Financing, planning, M&E RegulationLocal government Implementation Planning, M&E, coordinationPublic agricultural service Provision of national M&E of services through providers programme services performance contracts

Upward accountability Complements other services‘Teaching’ rather than Downward accountabilityfacilitation Facilitation of multi-stakeholder

configurations for learningPrivate advisory Provision of private goods Contracted by local government for service providers advisory and facilitation services

Complements public servicesFarmers’ organizations Collaborative arrangements at Participatory planning. Procurement

farmer-group level and M&E of servicesVehicle for consultation and Providing advisory services to dissemination members

Entrepreneurs providing Supply chain role Role in value chain development output and input services (interacting with other players)

Cost-sharing of advisory servicesSource: This study.

co-financing, demand greater social impact versus economic impact, with differentcontracted projects competing for the same target group. This sometimes leads tosituations in which public authorities (have to) act on behalf of the ultimate clients.

Procurement-related activities

A selection process identifies organizations capable of implementing a task that is (to be)outsourced. The steps involved in an outsourcing operation are generally as follows:• Identification: identifying the types of services to be outsourced; determining the

focus of the effort; the key recipients; registration of advisory services, both in theprivate sector and in civil society (based on established criteria); and establishingmechanisms for service provider classification and short-listing.

• Actual procurement:- Distributing the invitation: preparing the terms of reference; defining selection

criteria and procedures; defining the services AAS demanded; plus the call fortenders/proposals.

- Selection: evaluation and ranking of proposals, with or without the participation offarmers and their organizations.

- Contracting: involving farmers’ organizations in contracting procedures; rules forpayment/cost-sharing of extension costs and hence involving tripartite contracts.

• M&E: identifying objective and verifiable indicators; involving farmers and theirorganizations, the local government and other stakeholders in M&E.

• Ex-post publicizing the results in order to ensure transparency and allow for learningand scaling-up of the processes and results.

There are two main approaches to procuring agricultural advisory services and these arereflected in two selection modalities: 1. tender; or, 2. call for proposals: 1 Tendering is a common procedure where the project is designed to be funded through

specialized consultancy firms, and subsequently the assignment is offered out to tenderin order to select the particular agencies to implement the specified project andprovide the relevant services. It is possible to use either ‘open’ (accessible to all) or‘closed’ tenders (based on a short-list).

2 An open call for proposals is another possibility; here a public institute defines thebroad area of intervention and the objectives (based on farmers’ priorities) to bepursued, while indicating the desired strategic orientation and guiding principles ofthe interventions to be funded. In this second alternative, the exact identification ofthe project and the partnerships to be established are generally left to the competingentities.

In the last approach, effective and close M&E are essential for interactive learningpurposes, since major revisions during project implementation can, and often will, takeplace. Adapted management based on interactive learning and feedback is a strongargument in favour of this modality.

Competitive selection procedures are desirable to ensure fairness in contractor selectionand to establish competitive prices for contracted services. Both approaches are valid;each has advantages and disadvantages under a specific set of conditions (see Table 4).


Table 4 Advantages/disadvantages of procurement arrangements

Advantages DisadvantagesTender • Intervention clearly defined • The closed nature of the process does

• Objective evaluation and selection of not facilitate innovation or interactive the implementing firm for the learningspecified intervention because ‘like is • The often time-consuming and being compared with like’, i.e. all the expensive nature of the process incurs proposals received and evaluated have the risk that, by the time the the same focus intervention is implemented, the

situation may have changed, possibly making the project less relevant

• Tendering does not encourage partnerships

Call for • A more demand-driven process, • Less competition for qualityproposals leaving space for innovation, • Greater danger that professional

flexibility, experimentation, and a proposal writers will take overvariety of approaches • Risk of nepotism and compromised

• In principle, the time required for transparencyprocessing, identification and contracting is shorter

Source: Adapted from ProAGRI II, 2004 (in Part II) and Rivera et al., 2000.

Clear procedures and accountability mechanisms, such as competitive contractingprocesses, independent broad-based selection committees, regular reporting and routinefinancial audits, are essential for enhancing transparency.

Contracting and funding

Funding includes the budgeting and financing of outsourced activities. One of theobjectives of outsourcing is to contract more efficient and effective service providers, basedon their competitive or comparative advantage. Some of these issues are listed below(Heemskerk et al., 2003; Heemskerk and Wennink, 2004; PROAGRI II, 2004 in Part II):• In order to facilitate competition and increase the variety of service providers,

mechanisms may need to be considered to provide financial compensation for workrelating to the preparation of project proposals by unsuccessful bidders or introducingtwo-step approval mechanisms (‘concept note’ or ‘expression of interest’, followed bya full proposal).

• Budgets need to be made according to activity rather than having an itemized budget,so that activities can be compared. This is therefore referred to as ‘activity-basedbudgeting’.

• Cost/benefit estimates and cost accounting: where applicable, proposals shouldindicate unit costs per beneficiary and describe how these have been calculated.

• Contracts should stipulate that payment will only be made on satisfactory completionof outputs (which may provide special incentives for efficiency or effectiveness incompletion). Disbursement may be arranged in different types of instalments; forexample linked to the completion of certain phases or milestones. Contracts can alsoprovide specific incentives based on achieving results or ‘impacts’ by the contracted

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services (e.g. increased producer incomes, productivity, or even a contribution topoverty reduction).

• The level of cost-sharing and/or co-financing needs to be defined, as well asestablishing the relationship with ownership and effectiveness of the assignments.

• Contracts that ensure client participation in decisions on content and service provisionstrengthen demand-driven systems and often increase the relevance of the servicesprovided. A broad range of stakeholders are interested in, and need to be consulted on,defining these agricultural advisory services and identifying the primary clients.

• Outsourced projects falling within the livelihood system intervention areas need toemphasize working with farmers’ associations, as opposed to working with individualfarmers. In the context of value chain development, working with individualentrepreneurs may sometimes be considered.

• Since the beneficiaries are mostly heterogeneous, the contract proposals will ideallyneed to equitably balance support for farmers with strong economic potential andassistance to the very poor households. More specifically, tailored services may needto be provided for different types of households and farming systems.

Implementation

Once the authorities move decisively towards outsourcing, the number of contracts willinitially be limited, thus causing a situation where contracted service providers may beengaged on a part-time basis. However, this situation also creates opportunities for a gradualbuild-up of capacity within public agencies to run the new process. Managing contractedservices requires skilled staff with the capacity to monitor, supervise, and evaluate the workof contractors. Financial management and administration systems in many state agenciesalso often require strengthening in order to handle contracted services. When thegovernment issues a contract, responsibilities for supervision and regulation must bespelled out clearly, along with the agreed procedures at all levels (central/provincial/andlocal) for monitoring and evaluating the contracted service providers’ performance.

M&E mechanisms must allow both performance of contract service providers and theimpact of the contracted services to be monitored. Farmers, farmers’ groups andassociations and other stakeholders should be involved in monitoring and evaluatingthe work of the agricultural service providers. Finally, it is useful to follow a ‘programmeapproach’ and develop a system that always uses the outsourcing tool, rather than havemany different types of projects and approaches. Outsourcing arrangements createopportunities for service providers and other stakeholders to share experiences andresources, as well as to engage in collaborative planning and interactive learning, whichencourages local ownership and tends to enhance programme effectiveness.

3.7 Performance of the outsourcing mechanisms

General

The performance of the outsourcing system and mechanisms includes contributions tothe AIS, the role of the contracted agricultural service providers, as well as the results andimpact of the investment. Three proxy indicators are used to assess the contribution of

Methodology and analytical framework

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the outsourcing tool to publicly financed advisory service provision for smallholderagricultural innovation, i.e.:• Enhanced operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the agricultural advisory system

based on the comparative advantage of different stakeholders in the various roles, therelative concentration on core functions, as well as the achieved reduction of costs.

• Enhanced performance and sustainability of the system, particularly through participationof the private sector, contributing to more innovative ideas and thus strengthening theAIS and facilitating involvement of a greater number of stakeholders with diversecapacities.

• Improved performance of agricultural service providers, resulting in enhanced user-responsiveness and accountability, as a result of transparent contracting proceduresbetween providers, financiers, as well as beneficiaries, which are all based on jointplanning and hence ownership of the stakeholders in the AIS.

The results of outsourcing agricultural advisory services, as appreciated by both thedemand and supply sides, are expressed by the: 1 impact, or the degree to which the contents of the services provided (in terms of needs

and opportunities) are being addressed; 2 targeting of the different priorities and groups of clients; 3 feedback and accountability from (and to) the beneficiaries, including transparency; 4 timeliness of agreed actions; 5 relevance; 6 effectiveness, and 7 efficiency and cost/benefit ratios.

Efficiency and effectiveness

Efficiency and effectiveness need to be seen in relation to the baseline situation, when allservices were still provided by the public sector. A comparison can also be made betweendistricts (with or without outsourcing) and between different services for differentassignments. In practice, however, comparison will be difficult as different providers willaddress different issues and also have different functions. The introduction of advisoryservice provision outsourcing would probably have the main short-term effect ofenhancing cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the services provided. For others it wouldsimply mean a way of attracting more funds for agricultural advisory services, eitherthrough enhanced donor support and bringing NGO extension into the system, orthrough cost-sharing arrangements with more market-oriented farmers and theirassociations. A more significant, long-term envisaged benefit is the contribution made byoutsourcing, through wider stakeholder interaction and hence enhanced learning on ruralinnovation.

It is useful to be aware of how much extension services cost, and to improve theawareness and understanding of the expected benefits. Although this will be closelyrelated to the context, as well as the content of the agricultural advisory services, a cost inthe range of USD 5-25 per contacted household per year is often used as a realistic figurein planning the provision of agricultural services (Andre, 2004, Ribeiro et al., 2006).Others argue that different services and approaches can be more expensive, but that the

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real comparison has to be in the effectiveness and the contribution to rural innovation(Nederlof, 2006; Rivera et al., 2005).

Table 5 Expected effects of outsourcing agricultural advisory services

Effects of Efficiency EffectivenessoutsourcingPositive • Possible reduction of permanent public • Flexibility in responding to needscontribution sector staff • Partnership and development of to • Deployment of scarce resources for relationships with other stakeholders

high priorities • Greater variety and quality of ASPs • Involvement of special skill providers. (advisory service providers), due to • Greater clarity in objectives and accountability and competition

outputs • Allows performance-based contracting• Use of comparative advantage

Negative • Heavy initial costs (e.g. staff • Loss of institutional memory (costs)contribution redundancies, retirement packages) • A greater variety in specialized ASPs to • Risk of increased bureaucracy in may lead to a lack of overall expertise

local government • New information and experience not • Strengthening financial and passed on due to discontinuity in

administrative systems contracts• Loss of key government staff • Breakdown of the interactive learning • Training costs of supervisory bodies processes due to the fragmentation of

(i.e. the costs of these improved the knowledge marketmanagement skills) • Private sector less accountable to

• Potential for nepotism (local level) smallholders due to decreased emphasis and corruption (higher level) on inclusive participation

Source: Adapted from Rivera et al., 2000, and WB, 2005.

Performance of the system

The performance of agricultural advisory service systems is largely determined by the wayin which public, private and third-party stakeholders interact, as well as the intensity andeffectiveness of this process. The mix of implementing stakeholders can be matched by amix of stakeholders that fund the services, as well as through joint procurement ofrequired services for strengthening rural livelihoods or product value chains. Otherelements relate to maintaining and developing the capacity of the system, system learningmechanisms, using suitable exit strategies, institutional memory and continuity, as well asexternal or public sector dependence.

Performance of agricultural service providers

Outsourcing requires local government procurement offices to define clear outcomes andoutputs as well as ‘SMART’ 9 indicators. However, this is no guarantee for strongdownward accountability of the contracted service providers on their performance andthe quality of services provided. The better connection between supply and demand

Methodology and analytical framework

9 Specific, Measurable, Acceptable/Assignable, Realistic and Time-bound.

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(achieved through outsourcing) should improve accountability, but the beneficiaries areoften not the actual clients, as the contracts are signed between the public sector (at bestaccountable to the farmers) and private service providers (Leeuwis and Van den Ban,2006). It is important to find ways of getting the clients more closely involved as the realdemanding party, e.g. through having a direct say in the outsourcing itself, selecting theservice providers, allocating financial resources, and in the participatory assessment of theresults. The FFS approach uses elements of community performance-based managementbased on participatory M&E10 (Feder et al., 2003). In CORDEMA, tools are used tocompare the perceived performance of research clients with the self-assessment of theresearch organization implementing the contract11. Similarly, community-basedperformance management allows clients to use the community ‘scorecard’ to assess serviceprovider performance and to compare this with self-assessment data for interactivelearning12 (Heemskerk et al., 2003).

10 www.farmerfieldschool.net/document_en/FFS_GUIDe.doc11 www.kit.nl/smartsite.shtml?id=SINGLEPUBLICATION&ItemID=150012 www.roboroz.ca/scorecard/index.html

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4 Lessons learned

4.1 General

The best practices and other lessons learned in the four case studies conducted inMozambique (PROAGRI I), Tanzania (PIP), Uganda (NAADS) and Mali (PASAOP)were analysed according to the four dimensions of the analytical framework presented inChapter 3, i.e.:1 enabling environment;2 advisory services system;3 outsourcing functions;4 performance.

See Table 2 in Chapter 3 and Part II of this publication for more detailed descriptions ofthe case studies. This chapter includes a summary of the overall lessons learned from thefour case studies. As an introduction to this chapter, a number of more general issues thatwere raised through the case studies are also discussed, such as the rationale for out-sourcing, the need for learning before up-scaling, and the notion that there are nospecific blueprints for introducing and up-scaling of the outsourcing concept.

The rationale for outsourcing

Why is outsourcing of AAS taking place? The case studies analyse the need foroutsourcing from the public sector perspective, especially since this is the main financierof such programmes. Some countries may not have certain competencies and capacitiesavailable within the public sector, and therefore a decision may be made to acquire thesecapacities through outsourcing rather than to develop the required capacity within thepublic sector (as is currently the case in Tanzania). In other countries (Mali) and in theminds of some stakeholders involved in Mozambique, outsourcing is a convenient vehiclefor recruiting more people to increase AAS coverage; this situation can lead to public-private advisory service competition. In Mozambique the outsourcing of entire AASprogrammes within districts was partly based on the (false) expectation that contracteddistrict agricultural advisory services would be a less expensive option for the governmentthan the funding of public services.

Other reasons for outsourcing include the perceived need that agricultural advisoryservice provision urgently needs to achieve greater impact (as concluded from the resultsof negative evaluations), and hence must become more demand-driven in response to thegreater diversity in demand (as was the case in Mali after the evaluation of the World

Lessons learned

Bank funded T&V programme). This diverse demand leads to the need to outsourceservices for which new knowledge, skills and mindsets are not yet available in the publicsector. This is one of the key purposes behind outsourcing the new ‘national’ advisoryservice programmes within the ongoing programme in Uganda and, more recently, inTanzania and Mozambique.

The vision to move from a linear system of ‘training of trainers’ (TOT) to a moresystemic AIS, and thus involve a greater number of stakeholders in the overall learningprocess through outsourcing, is shared by several countries. It is the main objectivebehind the new agricultural advisory service programmes in Tanzania, Mozambique andMali. The case studies showed that, before services are contracted out, it is advisable todefine a common goal, at least between the demand for services and local governments.

Learning as a prerequisite for up-scaling

Outsourcing agricultural advisory services with public funds is not ‘business as usual’ – itinvolves new roles at different levels in the public sector, new stakeholders and differentprocesses. It goes without saying that learning lessons from the experience gained on pilotprogrammes is a prerequisite before the up-scaling of the outsourcing process can startwith confidence.

Contracting out services involves major strategic choices in terms of privatization ofservice provision, demand-orientation and decentralization. In all of the four casesstudied, pilot outsourcing programmes were designed to serve as action-learningexperiences and the gradual introduction of outsourcing was planned on this basis.However, not all pilot experiences were adequately documented with respect to bestpractices and lessons learned, and also not all such projects involved regular interactivelearning between the key stakeholders. There is only scant information available on pre-planned learning mechanisms on the use of these pilot projects, and programmes areoften scaled-up on the basis of only a limited understanding of the lessons learned.

Since the pilot experiences gained under the WB-financed Agricultural ExtensionProgramme (AEP 1991-1996), which were hardly documented, the NAADS programmein Uganda has scaled-up a system of outsourcing services to an almost nationwideprogramme, admittedly with much ‘learning by doing’ during the early stages of theprogramme. Nationwide up-scaling is currently being implemented in the other countriesinvolved. As demonstrated in Uganda, it is clearly realized that even during this up-scaling phase there is a continuous need to document best practices and lessons learned,since (due to decentralization and deconcentration) difference experiences will existsimultaneously in different districts. It is also necessary to have a clear strategy forintroducing outsourcing, plus well-formulated learning points and moments. Forexample, the starting point for up-scaling needs to be clearly defined, whether startingwith pilot districts (Mozambique and Mali), projects (Tanzania) and/or value chains(Uganda).

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A blueprint does not exist

The enabling environment and the institutional and organizational context of theagricultural advisory services determine the choice, modes of implementation andenvisaged impacts of service provision. Contracting out some of the services to privateproviders is a choice made locally in view of the local demand and institutionalenvironment. This can vary (from district to district) as shown in the study case inUganda and, increasingly, in Tanzania.

The principle of outsourcing may meet opposition if services are contracted outindiscriminately – bypassing existing capacity and experiences – as has already happenedin some areas of Uganda13 and Mozambique. The initial approach in Uganda, as inTanzania, was based on using new practices in agricultural advisory service provision bycontracting out some of the functions. Specific differences call for ‘best fit’ approaches toachieve the right mix of functions between agricultural service providers, farmers’ organi-zations and local government (Birner et al., 2006a, 2006b). Consequently, there is nosingle prescribed ‘model’ for agricultural advisory service provision, the trap into whichthe T&V-based extension management system fell. Reaching a ‘ best fit’ situation is onlypossible through strong interaction between the (public and private) service providers,within and between districts (in order to learn from new approaches and methods), aswell as with local governments and farmers’ organizations. Documenting the interactivelearning between these stakeholders will mean documenting the entire process andidentifying specific ‘learning moments’. The documented case studies pay little attentionto the process of learning. Instead, the focus is mainly on the extension message and itspotential impact.

4.2 Enabling environment

Policy and legislation

Outsourcing advisory services by the public sector requires demand-driven prioritysetting as well as downward accountability to create a client-driven service provisionsystem. In order to make this happen, decision-making has to be brought closer to theclients. Decentralization of planning, procurement and M&E of agricultural advisoryservice provision at the local level are essential to make participation possible (Beynon etal., 1998; Cox and Ortega, 2004). Full decentralization in terms of political decision-making, administration and finances is, in practice, rarely completed concurrently. In theabsence of political decentralization (e.g. Mozambique), accountability mechanisms andlocal decision-making remain weak, while the absence of full administrativedecentralization (Uganda, Tanzania, Mali) leads to local conflicts between priorities in thedifferent sectors and poor integration of these into district plans. A lack of financialdecentralization does not strengthen efforts for local revenue collection, cost-sharing andco-financing of service provision (Mozambique and Mali), while abrupt changes in

Lessons learned

13 Due to political interference, NAADS in Uganda in 2007, was temporarily shut down, withpotentially devastating effects for the creditability of the programme.

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legislation concerning local revenue collection (such as in Tanzania) do not contribute tolocal financial autonomy and cost-sharing.

The required legislation on decentralization, privatization of agricultural service providers,and the establishment and operation of farmers’ and community-based organizationsrequires corresponding regulations on deconcentration within sectors and beyond.Registering agricultural service providers and clarifying the legal position of farmers’organizations in quality assessment and transparency form the best method of contractingout services. In general, outsourcing policies can be decided at the national level, but thelevel of outsourcing and required conditions must be defined at the local level.


In each of the case studies, the principle stakeholders in outsourcing advisory services are:local government authorities, (public and private) agricultural service providers, andfarmers’ groups/organizations. A desired future scenario in many countries is a situationin which farmers’ organizations directly contract service providers without interferencefrom local government authorities (except to provide funding). Some countries hope tomove from a situation where NGOs play a strong role in agricultural advisory serviceprovision to one with a ‘best fit’ mix of public and private service providers (alsoinvolving small and medium-sized enterprises) at the local level, which is financiallysupported by farmers and the public sector.

The changing roles of the three main stakeholders require funding, procurement andservice provision functions to be separated, thus leading to the need for institutionalreform. New relationships between governance, agricultural service providers, farmers’organizations, and evolving demand will eventually lead to adaptation in the types andnumbers of certain service providers. The move towards a pluralistic system will probablylead to ‘rightsizing’ of the public agricultural service providers, such as planned‘retrenchments’ in Tanzania, ‘de-layering’ in Uganda, ‘privatization’ in Mozambique, and‘rationalization’ in Mali. In the case of Uganda, failure to adjust to a pluralistic advisorysystem has led to a partially superfluous and dormant relatively large publicly financedadvisory service capacity. An opportunity (and advantage) in the case of Mozambique isthe relatively small size of the public extension system.

All case studies point to the need for a major mindset change among all stakeholders:particularly by farmers, in terms of demand; by services, in moving from training tofacilitation; and by all agricultural service providers in expanding their value-chainorientation. Equally important, the local government administration will need to developa management attitude, with administrative and agricultural officials changing from animplementation role to that of facilitating stakeholder interaction.

Competency and capacity development strategies

A system of advisory services that uses outsourcing to acquire new knowledge andexperience via new stakeholders requires strong emphasis on capacity development topromote the further evolution of these institutional innovations. Institutional capacity

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development to enhance the interaction between the three main stakeholder categories isurgently required. Strengthening the capacity of farmers’ organizations is also a priority inall cases, as well as the need to develop local government capacity to administer a systembased on outsourcing and performance contracting.

Capacity development of farmers’ organizations is often left to NGOs (Mozambique,Tanzania,) or channelled through the ‘Chambers of Agriculture’ (Mali).14 Farmers’organizations are supported in order to develop their role in planning and contractingservices, as well as in actual service provision. Outsourcing gives farmers’ organizationsthe opportunity to play a greater role in contracting services, e.g. through the FarmerFora in Tanzania and Uganda. Farmer Fora are based on local farmers’ groups, whichoften require substantial strengthening in themselves15. Multiple approaches have beenused by the various agencies (in Uganda and Tanzania) contracted to develop farmers’groups. In some cases exchange visits and meetings resulted in continued informationflow, learning and sharing knowledge and experiences between groups, and contributedto stronger Farmer Fora.

However, not all outsourcing programmes follow a systems approach in which capacitydevelopment of all stakeholders involved is seen as a priority. In Mali, for example,capacity development of contracted private agricultural service providers is not directlysupported, while it is an explicit part of the contracts in Uganda. The public sectorsometimes also provides technical support services for training contracted (public)extension workers on the way to privatization. Tanzania and Mozambique have specialprogrammes that involve credit schemes to allow former extension officers (from bothNGOs and public sector) to start their own agricultural advisory enterprises.

The agricultural service providers, both public and private, greatly depend on knowledge(both technical and social) that is relevant to the problems and opportunities raised byfarmers. Hence, there is a pressing obligation to improve training and documentation byresearch service providers, both in terms of message (availability) as well as language(access). Continuous interaction is also required between stakeholders, especially in theAIS context (resource services, research and advisory services, farmers’ organizations, andmarket parties) with an emphasis on learning. Most case studies include few details onthe interaction with research service providers; with the exception of Mali, where thesame (PASAOP) programme also supports the creation of regional agricultural researchand extension committees, which should facilitate information flows and interactionbetween research and extension. Given the dependency of the entire system on thecontinuous introduction of new information, this is considered problematic.

Lessons learned

14 Chambers of Agriculture focus on consultation and information sharing between farmers andnational governments on national policies. The Chambers have a legal mandate to represent theconstituency of all farmers (Bingen, 2004).

15 Farmer Fora at ward, district, zone and national levels play a role in articulating the demand andcontracting ASPs to respond to this demand.

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4.3 Advisory services system

Organizing the demand for outsourced services

In all case studies the agricultural advisory services system is moving from a situation inwhich demand is determined by the public sector (e.g. through the T&V system), to asystem in which other stakeholders (notably NGOs) but also farmers’ group andorganizations are influencing the agenda of the overall system. The demand for advisoryservices can be further mobilized by supporting the collective action of farmers, while theresulting programmes also need to be tailored to the varying needs of specific farmercategories. All case studies have opted to operate in a context where there is some form ofcollective action by farmers to demand advisory services through various participatoryplanning approaches. The target group is the small-scale farmer who needs empowermentto enter into the system; however, little (if any) differentiation is made between povertycategories. In practice, the farmer groups and fora are often platforms for different farmingand community groups, without much emphasis on bridging social capital (see glossary).

Client differentiation and inclusion. All smallholders are considered poor and frequently, atbest, the only differentiation is between gender and age categories. However, specialprogrammes have been put in place to make sure that female farmers, disadvantagedfarming households, and families affected by disease are well represented in the FarmerFora (Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Mali). These fora are seldom represented at,and linked with, other levels or to existing farmers’ organizations with a larger exposureand influence. As other stakeholders are also organized vertically, the national farmers’federations (such as UNAC in Mozambique and MVIWATA in Tanzania) need to play amuch stronger role in articulating demand at all levels (community, district andprovincial or zonal) to ensure the necessary coherence of that demand. Although a publicsystem may use outsourcing as a means to provide public or private-based advisoryservices, it does not follow that these services will be particularly directed towardsdisadvantaged groups. These groups are increasingly recognized in terms of groupcomposition (particularly in relation to gender), to some extent during the planningprocess (in terms of HIV/AIDS-affected families), but far too little in the eventualprovision of services, including via the outsourcing of services.

Quality of the demand. The challenge of appropriate demand articulation by smallholdersis to strengthen market access and their empowerment in the value chain, whilerespecting and enhancing their livelihood systems. In Uganda three criteria are used to setpriorities for advisory services: 1 relevance to livelihoods; 2 potential impact; and, 3 the local research and advisory service capacity.

In other cases the effective demand for economic development priorities in districtdevelopment plans is limited (Mozambique, Mali) or needs to be protected through‘earmarking’ or ‘setting apart’ of funds (Tanzania)16. Farmers’ groups need help to express

16 In Tanzania referred to as ringfenced funds, that can not used by other sectors.

this demand by sub-sector e.g. with regard to crop, livestock and environmental issues.Technical groups such as FFSs are sometimes not linked to the planning system(Tanzania, Mozambique), while other farmers’ groups often demand ‘more of the same’,such as production-oriented technology demonstrations (Mali); there is mostly onlylimited demand for market-driven technologies, although such demand is increasing, iffacilitated (Uganda).

At the local level there is a need for additional knowledge and information (‘what isavailable’) to avoid asking for known services, opportunities and technologies. In othercases (e.g. Mozambique) the targets for the outsourced services are set too high due alack of priority setting. However, in a number of cases, farmers’ groups have passively(Mozambique) or actively (Uganda) rejected a number of technologies that wereconsidered irrelevant or did not address enhanced access to markets. In general, farmers’priorities are moving away from a production focus to more chain-related priorities, orfarmers are emphasizing the need for accompanying services such as market and financialservices (Mali).

Articulating the demand. In order to allow for proper client participation in the planningand M&E of advisory services, much more effort is needed to develop a level playingfield in which farmers and their organizations play the role of the client who isdemanding quality and, if unsatisfied, is in a position to effectively influence serviceprovision. Examples of this are occurring in Uganda within the context of the enterpriseselection approach, which highlights the range of actions by a variety of stakeholders thatare required to fully develop all aspects of a value chain. There is some evidence ofeffective platforms in which the demand for specific services can be expressed proficiently;in addition to Farmer Fora, some multi-stakeholder committees also play this role, such asin Mozambique and Mali.

The way in which the various demands are expressed has broadened the scope ofagricultural advisory services. Farmers increasingly ask for market advisory services,financial advisory services, etc., in contrast to the usual agronomy and animal husbandryissues that were the traditional domain of the public agricultural extension services (Mali).In the past farmers were generally passive recipients of services and were not activelyengaged in the decision-making process. Although articulation of farmers’ demands hasimproved it is still not sufficiently strong, unless combined with powers over resourceallocation and involvement in overall decision-making, as illustrated by the Ugandan casestudy.

Managing diversity in demand. The expression of genuine demand by smallholders (bothproduction and market-oriented) is still weak, and both priority setting and aggregationare needed to develop realistic plans for AAS supply. All advisory services are knowledge-based and do not provide inputs or equipment. A balance has to be found in addressingshort-term (e.g. immediate cash crop benefits) and long-term constraints (often livestockand environmental issues), or aspects perceived by farmers in terms of direct and indirectbenefits. There is a danger that geographic and social issues and opportunities may be lostdue to the high level of aggregation, as services are contracted on the basis of districts,sub-counties or communes, and not at the local/village level (Mali). On the other hand,

49Lessons learned

there is sometimes limited aggregation in issuing contracts for many small services dueto a fragmented programme with high transaction costs (Uganda). In practice, localgovernment administrations are tempted to aggregate demand for ease of contracting,also in part due to limited analysis of the issues (Mali) and sometimes because of localpolitical interference. The contracting of services needs to take into account the specificcharacteristics of the demand, e.g.: 1 location and group, as well as household category-specific problems; 2 interaction with other services; and 3 the balancing of long-term and short-term benefits.

This is an enormous challenge for the local management of an outsourcing programme,as well as for the farmers and facilitators to express and analyse demands in a sufficientlydetailed demand.

Supply capacity development for responding to the demand

Variety of service providers. In response to this broad-spectrum demand, additionalstakeholders can be brought in via outsourcing, as well as through new knowledge ontechnologies, markets and approaches and other hitherto untapped capacities withexisting agricultural service providers. A wide variety of agricultural service providersoutside the public sector have emerged; although most of these are national andinternational NGOs and donor-financed projects. The case studies list many types ofservice providers (private sector, NGOs, farmers’ organizations), as well as the criteriadeveloped for their registration (technical and financial capacity, links with research andother service providers). Overall, there is a limited availability of private sectoragricultural advisory service providers, mostly consisting of large export commodityorganizations, local stockists and input suppliers. Farmers’ organizations are mainlyproviding services on farmer group formation, as well as on advocacy and lobbying.

Organization and pluralism. The new pluralism in agricultural advisory service providershas, to some extent, enabled public sector providers to break free from their morerestrictive administrative controls and, in some cases, to actually go private (e.g. stimulateextension agents to go ‘private’ in Uganda and Mozambique). Consequently NGOs havebeen receiving most of the new outsourcing contracts, although the choice in Uganda tofocus on the priorities of certain value chains has also led to greater involvement by smallprivate agricultural service providers.

The absence of a large public extension service in Mozambique and the development ofalternatives through international public funding in Mali are clear illustrations of howoutsourcing can contribute to the development of a pluralistic system of serviceprovision. The first step is to carry out a survey on what is happening at district andprovincial levels, which includes taking inventory of farmers’ organizations and serviceproviders. The next step is to provide coordination mechanisms, followed by actualfunding of the best available services for the local priority demands. The service providerslisted can be activated through public tendering and/or calls for proposals. At the sametime some sort of certification is needed – similar to the existing systems for public worksservice providers – and most countries have started working on a register for agricultural

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advisory service providers. The system of contractor certification subsequently requiresadditional capacity in order to assess and register providers, which is essential inestablishing a registration system of pre-qualified agricultural service providers.

Interaction and coordination. The public sector is slowly coming to grips with reality as itrealizes that the sector, unlike in the past, primarily has a complementary role to play indirect service provision. An important role for the public sector is to facilitate planningand M&E, primarily emphasizing equitable access to services. International agencies andNGOs often have other agendas than those of the public sector, based on their ownbackground, strategies and sources of funding. These organizations challenge the publicsector coordination mechanisms, resulting in enormous and persistent local capacitydevelopment problems, a local ‘brain drain’ from the public services to otherstakeholders, and no clear exit and sustainability strategies for the various projects andactivities (Uganda and Mozambique). Another challenge is the required contribution toinstitutional development and the involvement of all agricultural service providers,including the contracted services, in institutional learning.

Agricultural advisory services need to have strong links with national and internationalknowledge institutes (in both the public and private sector) in order to be able to offerup-to-date advisory services. The public sector can play a role in facilitating close andfrequent interaction with public research services; as with the regional agriculturalresearch and extension committees in Mali. Based on this interaction with knowledge andinformation sources, a ‘supply-push’ approach can be made in order to demonstrate theimportance of issues and/or enterprises that stakeholders have not (yet) demanded orthought about previously (or have ignored because there seemed to be no immediate ordirect benefits).

Competency and capacity. The public agricultural advisory services system increasinglyacknowledges the role of the end-user as a decision maker and driver of the process. It isthe end-user who assesses the performance and quality of the services providers.Continuing decentralization has made this possible and brought the management ofagricultural services closer to the client. At the same time, local platforms allow forinteraction between agricultural advisory service providers, local government, farmers’groups and other stakeholders. The platforms can take many forms (District ConsultativeCouncils in Mozambique, District Development Committees in Uganda and sometimesFarmer Fora, and Technical and Multi-stakeholder Committees in Mali) but have incommon the fact that they generally function at the district level and are linked withDistrict Councils. As a consequence, District Councillors are sometimes tempted tointerfere in both the priority-setting process (in themes and locations), and in thecontracting process (Uganda). In Mali, farmers are also represented in platforms throughthe Chamber of Agriculture, which is a national platform with regional and departmentalbranches (and is central to the PASAOP programme). In general, multi-stakeholderplatforms at local level (including both civil society and private sector stakeholders) arenot yet equipped with strong coordination mandates in relation to outsourcing, e.g. withrespect to allocating public resources for outsourcing, similar to competitive funds forresearch (Heemskerk et al., 2005).

Lessons learned

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As a general consensus and an important lesson from the case studies, it is clear thatservice provision needs to be mainly based on comparative advantages andcomplementarity, rather than on replacement and competition. Opening up the systemshould lead to clients having access to new skills in business orientation (NAADS-Uganda and pilot projects in Mozambique), multi-stakeholder facilitation, communitydevelopment, farmer empowerment, agro-processing, mindset change, a change inlearning and a new attitude (‘business unusual’). Involving new stakeholders is alsoexpected to contribute to interactive learning, although skills in this field are difficult tofind at the local level (Uganda). On the other hand, no general vision has emerged onhow to meet the need for interactive learning among agricultural service providers; hencethere is no expressed concern about the effects of the unavoidable competition betweenservice providers during the tendering process. The need to resolve the issue of identifyingfacilitation skills to ensure high levels of interaction among various stakeholders and theeffective transfer of knowledge between providers, users and other incidental beneficiaries,is critical. A deliberate effort must be made to help the weaker service providers to acquirethe capacity to participate in the outsourcing system based on realistic contracts.


Supply. The private services have often demonstrated poor interaction with (frequentlypublic) research services and with local government, resulting in concerns aboutcontinuity, exit strategies for time-based contracts, institutional memory and learning.Private services are sometimes even operating in different, barely overlapping, AKISs (e.g.export crops or new products such as flowers and medicinal plant chains).Complementarity, also in terms of the exclusion risk of the private agricultural serviceproviders rather than competition between service providers, is often the key word. Thepublic extension service is increasingly being assigned the role of the ‘default’ service(Mali). The overall challenge is to transform the agricultural extension services from theold stereotype of connecting researchers and farmers, to the new innovative mode ofdiscussing and working with farmers, researchers and the business community in aparticipatory manner to identify viable solutions.

Demand. Under earlier extension systems, farmers were often accustomed to receivingmany things free of charge, including inputs and advice. Conditions and mentalities havechanged and many farmers are now willing to invest, but farmers’ priorities for advisoryservices are still affected by the level of inputs provided for on-farm demonstrations(Uganda). Co-financing, in real terms, remains limited but contributions in terms oflabour, meeting time and land for verification/demonstration plots have become moreaccepted, although coordination is needed to harmonize approaches in terms ofincentives (Mali).

All cases discussed concluded that empowering farmers’ groups is essential – not only forplanning and M&E, but also for procurement, co-financing and (eventually) directcontracting of services. In practice, farmers’ organizations have often acquired a role inplanning and are being effectively represented, but they still have little influence over theactual contracting process. The case studies here show limited evidence of directcontracting of agricultural service providers by farmers’ organizations (with public funds);

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the only examples are some FFS and the role of farmers’ organizations in procurementprocesses in Uganda. The different levels of farmer empowerment (community, villageand district) need stronger interaction (i.e. bridging social capital17) and the role ofnational farmers’ organizations could be enhanced so that farmers can learn to demandservices more effectively. Farmer Fora at district and sub-district level are moreconsultative and are not linked to institutionalized social capital, such as the nationalfarmers’ organizations.

Governance. Outsourcing of agricultural advisory services has started at the national level(Mozambique, Tanzania), but it was quickly concluded that only contracting at the locallevel (with strong involvement by the local government) allows for downwardaccountability and transparency. However, agriculture often remains a separate sectorwith only deconcentrated local departments that are not fully integrated into districtprogrammes. The central government is increasingly limiting itself to a regulatory role,while services that are managed by local government have an implementing role. Theprovincial government often plays a supervisory role in outsourcing, as well as for actuallycontracting services for issues that go beyond the individual districts. Importantchallenges for the local government remain, such as building capacity to manage apluralistic outsourcing agricultural advisory services system, as well as enhancedaccountability and private sector involvement. Strong capacity is crucial for programmeand contract management at the local level. As confirmed by World Bank experience(WB, 2005), special key elements in this process include: contract negotiation, contractorperformance, compliance monitoring as well as financial control.

Facilitation. A major challenge is to show a shift in power from a narrower to a wider setof stakeholders, as well as changes in governing resources to prevent ‘capture’ by any oneinterest group. This was particularly clear from experience in the NAADS programme,where local power struggles have emerged. This process requires the availability ofcompetencies at the local level for multi-stakeholder facilitation, which traditionally onlyexisted in some NGOs and was limited in terms of encouraging private sectorinvolvement.

Facilitation capacity for interaction between farmers’ organizations, research and serviceproviders, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders, needs to be perceived as neutral. Thepublic sector needs to identify qualified facilitators for multi-stakeholder learning in theinnovation process. This process takes time, and therefore often encounters scepticism(Mozambique, Uganda). The need for quality and impartial facilitation implies thatformer public extension service personnel are under pressure to increasingly change fromtrainers to facilitators (as shown most clearly in the Mozambique case). At the same time,public extension moves to the extension management role, with the emphasis onsupervising and contracting services. District level public facilitators play a role in thelearning process, both within contracts and also between contracts. However, the latterhas not been developed in the present case studies. There is also limited experience withinteractive learning between the decentralized districts for inter-district learning,requiring strong (but often unavailable) facilitation.

Lessons learned

17 A type of social capital that refers to the interaction and links between farmers’ groups.

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4.4 Outsourcing operations

Procurement

Farmers’ involvement. Ideally the client of agricultural advisory services, thefarmer/entrepreneur, the farmers’ organization or the community, recruits and contractsthe service provider directly, but smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa often lack thenecessary means, capacity and power to supervise procurement of the required services.However, farmers are becoming more involved in the procurement of services incountries such as Uganda. Based on the subsidiarity18 principle most services, and indeedmany agricultural services, can best be contracted at the district level, with some servicescontracted even at the community level. Unfortunately, research services are generallycontracted at the provincial or national level. Another step towards farmer empowermentin this process concerns involving farmers’ groups in identifying priorities, selectingagricultural service providers and monitoring their performance, as happens in Ugandaand with the FFS Programmes, and also in some cases in Mozambique, Tanzania, andMali.

Tendering. An element of competition has been incorporated into all the differentoutsourcing arrangements. For example, the tendering procedure of comparing alternativeproposals for complete extension coverage (in two districts in Mozambique) led to theselection of two different service providers; the expectation was that these would be betterand cheaper than the existing public system. Most case studies have developed a mixbetween tenders and open calls for proposals. In many situations, the public extensionservice is maintained exactly as it was before and is not given a completely new mandateto facilitate extension planning, M&E and contract management. Contracting outagricultural advisory services is not only meant to fill any gaps in expertise (especially inUganda, Tanzania) or coverage (particularly in Mozambique, Mali), but also to bring innew knowledge and skills. The question is: how can these can be best procured by thedemand side?

A large number of potential agricultural service providers are still excluded from thecontracting system for a variety of reasons (e.g. a lack of tender preparation skills orfamiliarity with procedures, costs, location, etc.). Some service providers are moreeffectively linked to the procurement systems and may appear to be favoured. InMozambique, Mali and Uganda the criteria for the short-listing and final selection ofcontractors include experience and track record, as well as evidence of both technical andfinancial capacity; although such conditions may also exclude critically importantnewcomers. The dominance of a few successful agricultural service providers may lead toother competitors ‘withering and dying’ due to lack of revenue.

Another consequence that has been observed is the formation of strategic alliances andcollusion by some potential bidders so that they have a higher chance of winning; thiscan lead to greater complementarity but less competition. The contracted service providerneeds to mobilize a qualified team that remains the same throughout contract

18 Actions need to be taken by the stakeholders and at the level where these can best be achieved.

implementation and cannot be changed without approval of the contracting district.This avoids situations in which a good and winning team is presented during contractnegotiation, while less qualified, and often less expensive, substitutes are actually used forthe field work. Such situations have led to a debate as to whether contracting should bebased on individual agricultural service providers rather than on implementation bycorporate entities (e.g. in Uganda and Mozambique).

Competition. A competitive bidding process can be fully open or can be based on a short-list that is prepared based on registered suppliers and the specific type of servicesrequested. The general observation that the tendering process at the district level isrelatively costly, resulting in high transaction costs, which can be partially reducedthrough short-listing, as well as by involving farmers in the process. The dynamics of thecompetitive process can be complicated: on the one hand the competitors need to learnfrom each other and develop partnerships while, on the other hand, the processencourages providers to keep knowledge to themselves. In Mozambique and Ugandaadditional measures were needed to regulate the formation of alliances for learning andimplementation; these needed to be fixed for the contract period. Competition needs tobe limited to the call for proposals, and should not affect implementation or causeproblems for interactive learning. Premature formation of local alliances (see above) canalso threaten the competitive element. A major general concern is the control oftransaction costs for the competitive process, hence the need to use short-lists based onlocal registration of agricultural advisory service providers.

Funding the provision of advisory services

In the case of contracting, funding is separated from procurement and the actual provisionof these services. This is in contrast to the situation in which the deconcentrated districtextension service waits for its government contribution disbursed through the Ministry ofAgriculture. Changes also include the introduction of transparency and accountabilitymechanisms, as well as the emphasis on co-financing, timely disbursement of funds,performance and incentive management.

Co-financing. In order to achieve a strong level of demand-driven motivation in servicesprovided, co-financing of agricultural service provision is considered crucial as it leads tocommitment (in the case of the service provider) and performance monitoring (in thecase of the client; e.g. 20% by the district in Mali). The World Bank (WB, 2005) andIFAD (ASP, 2006 in Part II) argue that even smallholders and marginal farmers cancontribute between 5-25% to the costs of services, although almost entirely ‘in kind’.Initially, before the deconcentration of advisory services, a contribution by the localgovernment was considered co-financing (e.g. 5% in Uganda), although later this beganto include contributions from farmers’ organizations at district and community levels.

The lack of full decentralization that is often encountered in the agricultural sector limitsthe possibilities for co-funding by the local government. In Tanzania and Uganda thefunds for outsourcing agricultural advisory services are transferred to the district, but are‘set apart’ in the sense that these funds are not part of the district’s normal budget andcan only be allocated for agricultural purposes. In Tanzania, FFSs contributed up to one-

55Lessons learned

third of the costs of their own establishment (USD 200, in kind), while farmers’organizations in Uganda contributed up to 2% towards regular service contracts, withcontributions from farmers’ organizations and municipal authorities in Mali at 20%,though mainly in kind. This in-kind contribution, in the form of labour, time toparticipate in meetings and land for demonstrations, is often considered a token gesture,as the opportunity cost is low. However, in some instances, even in-kind contributionscause the exclusion of some household categories (e.g. those with little land and labourresources).

Co-financing of services by private agricultural service providers is limited, although theemphasis of advisory services on value chain development in Uganda provides newopportunities. The challenge for real co-financing lies in the contribution by farmers,farmers’ organizations and private agricultural service providers through public-privatepartnerships (for example, as occurs in the export commodity sector).

Length of contracts. Most agricultural advisory service contracts are of a relatively shortduration (generally just a few months). Attention needs to be paid by the facilitators ofthe priority-setting process on not focusing on too many short-term concerns so thatthe impact becomes diluted. However, not all issues raised by farmers are of a short-termnature. Addressing long-term issues, such as environmental and natural resourcemanagement constraints, require stronger governance and often the involvement ofprovincial authorities, as these also address cross-border constraints.

The challenge is to achieve a balanced mix of direct benefits from short-term services andindirect benefits from long-term services. Most of the contracts with service providers areshort-term (an average of 90 days in Mali) or of a low-budget nature (USD 15,000 inTanzania), which is caused by the type of problems raised as well as by their multitude.The numerous agendas of farmers’ groups and their representatives in the Farmer Foraoften resulted in the selection of too many short-term priorities to maintain the peaceand to spread the available funds over contracts that address the constraints of as manystakeholders as possible. Such large numbers of short-duration contracts did not alwaysprovide the critical mass of effort required for successful enterprise development.Nevertheless, farmers point out that the small contracts ensure that the risks (of defaultingor sub-standard service) are spread across a number of agricultural service providers.

Mozambique took a different approach, and entire district extension programmes werecontracted out for a three-year period or for entire provinces (for a particular commodity).Consequently, these were large contracts managed at the provincial and even nationallevels. A proper mix between contracts for short-term and long-term activities is needed,as well as a good balance between growth and development orientation. In a transitionalphase many of the outsourcing contracts are of a tripartite nature (Tanzania, Mozambique,and Mali) in which provincial or national governments sign contracts between localgovernments and agricultural service providers. At the local level new tripartite contractsare developing between local governments, farmers’ organizations and agricultural serviceproviders. This symbolizes a move from upward accountability towards downwardaccountability, as central government is replaced in the contracts by farmers’organizations.

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In general, there is a tendency to have short-term contracts to accommodate all priorities,while long-term contracts have been criticized for not allowing sufficient flexibility tofacilitate the learning process. There is some concern about the lack of addressing long-term issues through outsourcing, which is due to: 1 administrative emphasis on, and preference for, short-term contracts; and, 2 mostly demand from the farmers’ organizations for short-term involvement by

agricultural service providers.

A major remaining challenge is to strike a balance between the short-term direct benefitissues/contracts and long-term/indirect benefit issues/contracts, with the latter possiblycontracted at a higher (i.e. provincial or national) level.

Disbursement arrangements. Agricultural service provision requires, more than any otherservice, a stable level of financing with timely disbursements in order to avoid disruptionof the, mostly seasonal, programmes. The co-funding party clearly must play a role in thedisbursement arrangements (as illustrated in the Mali case), while in Mozambique it isargued that qualified and certified agricultural service providers need to have a basicfinancial capacity to provide a minimum liquidity level. Experience from Uganda andMozambique suggests that, particularly with longer-duration projects, the sequence ofdisbursements needs to be linked to achievements and performance, as perceived byclients. This approach is already common for incentive payments to extension workers inTanzania and Mozambique who are involved in the FFS programme, although these arealready perceived as performance-oriented services.

It is important to ensure that disbursements are linked to performance withoutdisrupting implementation. In practice, disbursement is often problematic only foradministrative reasons, requiring some financial muscle with the agricultural serviceproviders to guarantee continuity of services. This leads to the conclusion thatoutsourcing programmes require capacity strengthening in management at the local level,together with total fiscal decentralization, in order to avoid disbursement problems.

Incentives. Clients may perceive agricultural advisory services as mechanisms to accessmoney, either directly (through incentives obtained during on-farm demonstrations) orindirectly (through benefits from meetings, study tours, etc.). If these are not regularlyforthcoming, farmers’ interest in initially promising concepts such as ‘partnership’,‘demand-driven agendas’, and ‘client-orientation’ (which have different meanings fordifferent people), may be lost. A special issue concerns the provision of incentives for potential agricultural serviceproviders who are still attached to the public extension system (e.g. because they have notbeen paid their severance package, as in Uganda). Such providers are often not facilitatedadequately to provide services, although special programmes to establish small-scaleadvisory services have started in Tanzania and Mozambique. Therefore, the issue ofservice providers’ incentives and creating capacity also needs to be seen in the context ofgood governance and institutional reform.

Contracted agricultural service providers are considered well paid, which leads toobservations by the public sector that private service providers are too expensive.

57Lessons learned

A complete analysis is required of all costs (including overheads) by public agriculturalservice providers in order to enable a fair comparison. The need for service provision inremote, distant areas and for problematic target groups, that is difficult to meet throughpublic services, could be another reason for providing additional incentives forimplementing contracted advisory services (Uganda). As indicated earlier, performance-related incentives are also increasingly becoming part of the approaches followed by thepublic sector (e.g. FFS), in addition to outsourcing contracts.

Providing advisory services

Most outsourcing programmes are initially implemented as a learning process, but thereis often too much pressure to achieve short-term poverty impact at the expense ofthoroughly documenting the procedures and methods followed, learning specific lessonsand converting these into generalized enhanced practices that are relevant to otherspractitioners. This process requires well-established learning strategies, as well as exitstrategies (particularly in the case of short-term contracts) and effective M&E to ensurecontinued opportunities for ‘learning by doing’.

Learning and exit strategies. The fact that many countries (i.e. all of the case studies),started with pilot projects in agricultural advisory service outsourcing before up-scalingunderlines the fact that such programmes evolve over time through a learning process.However, as demonstrated by the case studies, adequate mechanisms for this learning areseldom in place and/or effectively utilized. The general recommendations derived from thevarious pilot programmes emphasize the requirements for harmonizing implementationapproaches between contractors and the provincial and district (agricultural) authorities,as well as the need to deal with risk mitigation and with exit and sustainability strategies.

Exit strategies are a key concern in relation to outsourcing, in terms of sustainability andthe establishment of institutional or collective memory. Capacity development of allstakeholders in the AKIS is essential for effectiveness and sustainability. This includes, forexample, involving farmers’ organizations to support local social capital (as practiced inTanzania) and establishing the new roles for the public and private sectors throughpartnerships and co-financing (evolving in Mali and Mozambique).

A central recommendation is to strengthen M&E, not only in the design of the programmebut also to follow the performance of the various stakeholders involved, thereby updatingthe exit strategy (if necessary), and facilitating both capacity development and final hand-over. Lesson learning by all stakeholders involved means creating mechanisms to makethis happen, such as exchanging experiences with other extension networks, developingthe capacity for provincial and district monitoring with enhanced human, financial andmaterial resources, etc. The M&E processes always provide useful managementinformation that allows for programme adjustment and enhanced bylaws for governingand managing the outsourcing system, as well as for updated manuals and procedures.Although NAADS and the pilot project in Mali, for example, were initially designed aslearning processes, there was inadequate (or zero) allocation of resources specifically tolearn and draw conclusions. Effective learning-by-doing requires capacity strengtheningand ownership development by all, also through co-financing and process

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documentation. Learning includes a number of aspects: learning from local pilots,learning between levels (district, province and central), learning between stakeholders,and establishing the required capacity to facilitate all these elements. Finally, the learningprocess for enhanced effectiveness and efficiency needs to be structured and resourced ina much better way.

Monitoring and evaluation. Close coordination is necessary between the contractor,farmers’ organization and district administration, requiring the contractor’s office to belocated at the district headquarters. Regular extensions of the contract or disbursementsshould not be automatic, but based on quality and performance, hence on enhanced(participatory) monitoring.

An M&E system, SMART output and outcome indicators and data-collection strategiesare essential before starting an outsourcing scheme. Participatory M&E is important in asituation where several agricultural service providers are providing advisory services tofarming communities. Participatory planning at district level requires downwardaccountability and hence participatory M&E of the performance by the various serviceproviders. In Mozambique’s FFS approach, farmers’ groups have been given the authorityto monitor the performance of services rendered. The FFS provides a report on theperformance levels of the extension officers involved, who then earn an incentive fee basedon this. Several tools are available, such as Community Scorecards and Community-BasedParticipatory M&E based on centrally provided performance indicators and complement-ed with indicators identified by farmers. M&E of outcome and impact requires closesupervision and guided monitoring, but sometimes this bordered on ‘policing’ to ensurecompliance with contract terms and timelines (Mozambique).

Periodic meetings, reviews and/or retreats and exchange visits for key stakeholders enabledocumentation of best practices for immediate replication, and identify the gaps forquick corrective action based on lessons learned. Adequate stakeholder capacity andattitude changes are needed to achieve this.

The involvement of political structures is of particular interest and has often involvedheated debates on resource control and impact assessment. Engaging politicians seems tobe mostly driven by how they perceive clients (electorate) and the allies they need tosecure future votes (Uganda, Tanzania). Up-scaling the programme is often largely drivenby local political demands rather than realism based on available resources (Uganda).Furthermore, such interference requires intensified M&E to shift from upward todownward accountability. The local government authorities play an important role incontrolling contract performance and also with regard to feedback from the targetgroups, although these functions are generally not yet linked to actual agricultural serviceprovider performance.

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4.5 Performance of a system using outsourcing

Operational efficiency and effectiveness

Efficiency enhancement is expected to be achieved by making use of the entrepreneurialand other skills which are envisaged to be more widely available within private, ratherthan public, agricultural service providers, while attracting at least some modest levels ofco-financing from the organizations and clients involved. Effectiveness can be enhancedas contracting is related to performance management and clear targets must be agreed,while contracting non-public service providers brings in new knowledge and skills,achieving enhanced results through complementarity.

Efficiency. In Mozambique the outsourced district extension was designed to cost thesame as public extension in terms of annual costs per household. However, in practice,outsourcing resulted in costs that were at least three times higher, due to reduced (butmore effective) coverage. For the cashew advisory service contracts in Mozambique, thecosts of just the spraying and advisory services were similar to the cost of generalextension. Some argue that these costs are irrelevant unless more is known about theeffects and impacts of the advice and the rate of diffusion and adoption.

In Uganda the costs of the NAADS outsourcing programme are considerable in terms oftransaction costs, with NAADS staff at the sub-county level not yet fully integrated intothe local government staffing. In order for the outsourcing system to work effectively,processes must be simple and widely understood. Additional costs are associated with theproactive interventions necessary to induce a wide range of stakeholders to work togetherand to strengthen the weaker elements of the system. Realistically, these are investmentsin capacity development rather than ‘overheads’ that need reducing. There are also costsinvolved for the competitive tendering and planning processes. Further monitoring andenhanced transparency is required through financial auditing at the local level.

Effectiveness. A main advantage of outsourcing is the contractual establishment of cleartargets, which allows for performance management based on progress-relateddisbursements. In Tanzania it is argued that extension provision through the public sectoris cheaper and that its performance could be enhanced by using the same mechanisms asthose applied to the private sector. Farmers greatly appreciate the services providedthrough outsourcing contracts (as demonstrated in Mozambique and Mali) but feel thateffectiveness can be further enhanced through accompanying measures, such as thefacilitation of credit facilities and market opportunities.

The outsourcing instrument can contribute to capacity development and, at the sametime, can stimulate the public sector to change its way of working, reducing itsoperations in the process and hence improve effectiveness. The availability of advisoryservice coverage has improved through outsourcing, both geographically (Mozambique,Mali) as well as thematically (Uganda, Tanzania). The main effect of outsourcing has tobe found in complementarity and synergy of the various agricultural service providers(Tanzania, Mozambique, and Mali). However, M&E of the contribution made by the

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outsourcing tool to the complementarity and interaction of the stakeholders has, untilnow, been neglected.

The current development of pluralistic agricultural advisory services demonstrates thatextension coverage has increased due to the complementary elements of various serviceprovider categories (Mali, Mozambique). However, in Uganda, it was concluded thatlarger projects are needed in order to achieve more widespread effects. Export commodityadvisory services can be privatized as the value chain or produce board can finance thesethrough export levies. Similarly, NGOs and national farmers’ organizations can provideeffective services to guide farmer group formation and provide general facilitation ofmulti-stakeholder processes (Uganda). In many cases, complementarity becomes evenmore evident if a gap analysis is undertaken, with subsequent contracting of agriculturaladvisory service providers based on comparative advantage, co-financing capacity andtrack record.

Most of the observations on the effects of the outsourcing tool refer to the cost of theprocess as well as the level of fees paid to private service providers – there is very littleattention paid to the effects. Baseline surveys have focused mainly on the expected impactrather than on process indicators, such as the type of farmers reached, interaction withmarket actors, etc. A greater effort is required to analyse the costs of the system, also inrelation to the expected short-term results, such as client satisfaction, coverage, etc.

Performance and sustainability of the system

Enhanced rural innovation system. A system whereby the various stakeholders interact onthe basis of the function(s) they do best in relation to the targets of the innovationsystem, is expected to enhance innovation. As shown in the case studies, an agriculturaladvisory services system based on outsourcing foresees a clear separation of the funding,procurement and service provision operations. Farmers and other small-scaleentrepreneurs are expected to gradually take over the procurement function, developcapacity for the contracting and at least partially share the funding function. Advisoryservices will best be provided by those who are locally in the best position do so,providing the ‘best-fit’ option for every situation, community and district; although someservices are better contracted at district level and others at provincial (or national) level.Gradually, the situation in which the public extension services are dominating willdevelop into a scenario in which private agricultural service providers, entrepreneurs,non-profit organizations and farmers’ organizations will take over the lion’s share ofresponsibility for providing the services required. However, the public sector willcontinue and will improve its tasks to coordinate, manage and finance the system. Suchan ideal situation is then expected to create enhanced innovation through effectiveinteractive learning between the various stakeholders involved.

As yet there is little information available on the impact of the outsourcing experienceson rural innovation, primarily because most cases are still at the pilot phase and have hadtoo little time to develop and mature. In Uganda the outsourcing programme has a largerscope and has had more time to develop; evaluation reports there suggest that the moremarket-oriented services have contributed to yield increases and enhanced household

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income (NAADS, 2006a in Part II). The main focus of the case studies has not been ontheir impact, but rather on the key steps required for enhanced innovation, the two mostimportant being: capacity development for interactive learning, and a sustainableenvironment in which such learning for innovation can take place.

Need for capacity development. As most case studies illustrate, the present situation stillfalls far short of a scenario in which there are balanced and well-implemented rolesbetween local government authorities, farmers’ organizations and agricultural serviceproviders in outsourcing agricultural advisory services. Although the contracting-out ofservices is increasingly taking place, major challenges have yet to be overcome. All casestudies indicate that the main gap is the required capacity at organizational level (localgovernment authorities, farmers’ organizations and non-public agricultural serviceproviders), as well as the need for institutional capacity development, including moreefficient stakeholder configurations and sustainable programme funding.

The institutional configuration of the three main stakeholders (farmers, service providersand local government) is still far from optimal and, in all cases, is still developing at thelocal level. Achieving the interactive learning expectations of the rural innovation systemdepends on: 1 the effectiveness of the interaction in place (local, village and district level); and, 2 interaction (in time) to ensure the continuity of the learning process.

Intellectual competence to facilitate and coordinate (through a secretariat, includingoutsourced expertise) is crucial for maintaining overall quality assurance and lesson-learning mechanisms. Also central to the learning process is the development of newapproaches other than the more traditional T&V, e.g. in Mali where (despiteoutsourcing) agricultural extension, whether public or private, continues to operate alongToT and T&V principles. This again will require an exchange of experiences betweenpublic and private providers.

The actual contracting of services is also a learning experience for all involved, includingthe private agricultural service providers (Mozambique). Agricultural developmentprogrammes in Mozambique and Tanzania recommend a careful capacity needsassessment, bearing in mind the variable state of affairs in each district, in order to arriveat a situation-specific best-fit scenario.

Sustainability. In Uganda the continuity of the learning process is an issue that involvessupporting value-chain development, which is often fragmented into many smallcontracts for different agricultural service providers, due to the current low budget levelsand open tenders. This often results in farmers’ perception of duplication, with newcontracts contributing to the work of previous or ongoing contracts. In many instancesthis is seen as repetition (especially by farmers) when in fact it evolves from the currentrestrictions on funding levels and contracts that cannot be designed to cater for the entireenterprise cycle or the range of issues involved.

The NAADS programme demonstrates that interventionist approaches to serviceprovision, strengthening system capacities and engaging the public and private

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agricultural service providers, need to be adequately facilitated if any impact is to be seen.Decentralization means that districts and lower local administrations manage their ownfunds and programmes. In terms of overall programme management, delegating bothfunding and decision-making on the principle of subsidiarity is working well, especiallyin circumstances where there is a high degree of trust and good governance by the localadministrations.

Some of the aspects of the new system need more specific monitoring, as data concerningimportant areas is rarely available, such as with regard to the level of co-financing byfarmers, service providers and/or other stakeholders in the chain or AIS (Mali). Politicalinterference is one of the major threats to a pluralistic agricultural advisory service systemthat is publicly funded and managed at local level (Uganda, Mozambique). In such cases,the emphasis on transparency and downward accountability can be counter-productive.Other risks include the emphasis on competition for obtaining contracts, which undercertain conditions can limit the information sharing and learning.

Competition has also had implications for the up-scaling options of the locally learnedlessons on approaches and contents used by the various agricultural service providers.Finally, competition can also result in the loss (availability) of certain products or servicesfor which no capacity is maintained in the public system (WB, 2005). The question iswhether or not the public sector is expected to maintain those residual services for whichthere is less effective demand and that are not easily commercialized. A crucial remainingrole by the public sector is to provide services for which there is an advisory servicemarket failure. Clear public sector roles need to be established in terms of functions,thematically and geographically, in order to avoid collapse and discontinuity, hence theurgent need to develop unambiguous, locally owned policies.

Performance and accountability of the agricultural service providers

Performance by agricultural service providers is monitored by all stakeholders involved inthe contracting process; by local government authorities (as the contracting and fundingparty) as well as by farmers and their organizations (as clients). With the opening up ofthe agricultural advisory service system through decentralization and involvement of newstakeholders, the role of the ultimate beneficiary, the farmer, has become stronger. On theother hand, in all the case studies reviewed, most emphasis is still placed on monitoringthe performance of the agricultural service provider by the contracting agent, generallythe local government authorities. However, monitoring by local multi-stakeholdercommittees, such as district level Farmer Fora in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique(District Consultative Councils), is also developing. The control function is mostly basedon progress report reviews in relation to pre-determined indicators specified in thecontracts and monitoring through field visits, if budgets are available. In some cases thishas led to contracts being terminated and agricultural service providers (Uganda) beingblacklisted. However, in most situations, attempts were made to modify the specifics ofcontract implementation and/or the administration of the contracts (Mozambique, Mali).

Obviously, good governance, strong local government authorities and transparency arerequired in order for the process to work, including a well-established participatory

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planning and M&E process. The ultimate indicator of agricultural advisory servicesystem performance is the satisfaction level of small-scale farmers and entrepreneurs withthe services provided. Satisfaction by other stakeholders, such as local governmentauthorities, research organizations and other chain entities responsible for facilitatinginteractive learning, is equally important. Downward accountability means empoweringcommunities and farmers (bonding, bridging and linking), as well as using participatoryM&E tools, such as those involved in community-based performance management.Although these tools are being used in Uganda, the participatory M&E tools havegenerally not yet been institutionalized.

Mozambique has positive experience in using FFS-based performance management ofextension officers, while village groups in Mali hold extension officers accountable fortheir performance. Tripartite contracts between farmers, agricultural service providers andlocal government authorities can further enhance this process. Only limited informationis available on the structural differences in the performance of public, private or third-sector agricultural service providers. In Mozambique, attempts were made to compare theperformance of public and private service providers, but again, apart from the costs of thecontracts there was insufficient data available.

Outsourcing, in itself, is a main feature in improving agricultural service providerperformance, irrespective of whether the provider comes from the public or private sector.For the more entrepreneurial, market-oriented and high-quality management of services,the private sector clearly has a comparative advantage over the public sector. However,the public sector is generally stronger in advisory services on primary production andeffective rural outreach, as well as information on regulations and standards. NGOs havea facilitating role to play, as well as a responsibility in strengthening farmers’organizations. The key role for development agencies and programmes is often relatedto strengthening the capacity of local government authorities.

The case studies suggest that greater emphasis is needed on downward accountability ofcontracted agricultural advisory service providers. Farmers’ organizations and other clientsare the only stakeholders who can effectively monitor the performance of these serviceproviders. Consequently, empowerment of farmers’ organizations (also in terms ofresources) is essential to implement this monitoring function, which will probably resultin the farmers’ organizations eventually becoming the contractors. It is promising to seethat farmers’ organizations in Uganda have started blacklisting and terminating contractswith agricultural service providers that are not performing adequately, as well as rejectingsome of the services offered. At the same time, local government authorities need thecapacity to effectively monitor and control procedures, qualifications and contracts withthe agricultural service providers.

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5 Guidelines for enhancingadvisory service provisionthrough outsourcing 5.1 Introduction

The preceding chapters have analysed experiences with outsourcing agricultural advisoryservices from an AIS perspective in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Outsourcingexperiences remain scarce, but more and more stakeholders understand the benefits ofoutsourcing and would like to implement the practice. However, because these experiencesare few and still of short duration, little is known about how to actually achieve goodoutsourcing practices. Based on the AIS perspective, and thus on the premise that success-ful interaction between stakeholders determines the success of outsourcing, we have addedadditional lessons with regard to broader issues (for general lessons on outsourcing seeRivera et al., 2000;WB, 2005; DFID, 1997; Anderson, 2007; and Chipeta, 2006).General guidelines for outsourcing by the industrial private sector, where the outsourcingprinciple originates, include the ‘seven essential steps’ identified by Greaver (1999); wehave adapted these steps for the public sector with respect to outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services (see Table 6).

Based on lessons learned from recent experience collected in Uganda, Tanzania,Mozambique and Mali and more broadly in other countries both inside and outside Sub-Saharan Africa, this chapter presents additional guidelines that may help in establishingan effective system for outsourcing and its implementation. These guidelines can begrouped into three categories:1 guidelines for developing the context, including purpose, policies and the enabling

environment focusing on the first three of the seven steps and discussed in Section 5.2; 2 guidelines for managing the outsourcing system itself (steps 4-7), discussed in Section

5.3; and, 3 cross-cutting guidelines for capacity development (step 8), both in terms of

institutional and organizational aspects, as well as the development of individualcapacities, skills and attitudes for service provision based on outsourcing (see Section5.4).

These guidelines are directed at the public sector, more specifically the local levelmanagers of the public system of agricultural advisory services, operating on the basis ofdemand by farmers’ organizations within the context of (central and local) governmentpolicies for contracting out agricultural advisory services to private service providers.

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Table 6 Eight steps to successful AAS outsourcing by the public sector

Main steps ActivitiesI Developing the context 1 Planning Assess the risks of various outsourcing policies; announce the initiatives

outsourcing initiative to all stakeholders and collect feedback; form and train the outsourcing team in the agricultural sector; engage advisors and facilitators; identify and acquire resources, information and project management capacity; set objectives; organize the planning process for priority activities or services to be outsourced

2 Exploring Understand the existing advisory service programme and its organization:strategic vision, core competencies, structure, transformation tools, value chains, implications strategies; and define decision rights, contract length, termination dates, etc.; as

well as alignment of the outsourcing initiative with other programmes3 Analysing costs Measure activity costs and estimate future project costs, as well as opportunities

and for cost-sharing; measure existing and estimate future performance, as well as performance the cost of poor performance; determine costs/performance benchmarks, as well

as specific risks, asset values, total costs, pricing models, final targetsII Managing the outsourcing system4 Selecting Set qualifications and evaluation criteria; identify providers; screen and certify

agricultural providers for short-listing; draft and organize calls for proposals; evaluate service proposals based on qualifications and costs; perform due diligence; select a providers provider (based on total costs and the short-list of providers), and review with

stakeholder management committee.5 Negotiating Plan negotiations between relevant parties, involving higher levels; prepare

terms of terms of reference for all parties; negotiate contract: scope, performance contracts standards, pricing schedules, terms and conditions and announce relationships

between stakeholders (MoU)6 Transitioning Adjust roles of all stakeholders and plan transition to new roles; Address

of roles and transition issues such as communication, human resource development, resources availability of inputs and resources; interact with staff managing the

outsourcing system, service providers and farmers’ organizations; provide facilitation capacity; start the contracting process

7 Managing Adjust management styles; organize supervision and M&E; communicate and relationships interact with all stakeholders; define and design the learning process (meeting

agendas, meeting schedules, performance reports); perform supervisory role; confront stakeholders with poor performance; solve problems in the outsourcing system; build partnerships

III Capacity development8 Cross-cutting Strengthen capacities to implement all seven steps; individual capacity

strengthening based on knowledge skills and attitudes; organizational capacity strengthening of the key stakeholders; institutional capacity strengthening and capacity to interactively learn and innovate. Central to this is the ‘performance data collection/evaluation/feedback/improvement loop’, which is based on downward accountability and client assessment of services provided

Source: Adapted from Greaver, 1999.

5.2 Development of the context

Development of the rationale and purpose of outsourcing

1 Develop the overall policy framework National agriculture and rural development policies and short-term budgetary concernsdetermine the extent to which the public sector will invest in the provision of agriculturaladvisory services. Thus a policy decision needs to be taken on the desired and feasiblelevel of advisory service provision by the public sector. The public sector can take the leadas the sole agricultural advisory service provider, as has been the case in Sub-SaharanAfrica’s agricultural sector since the independence of most countries, or the public sectormay prefer to intervene only in the case of market failure in service provision; the latterpolicy leads to a combination of both public and private services based on public andprivate funding. In such a situation the public sector may opt to outsource some of thepriority services (such as agricultural advisory services) to the non-public sector, hencethe need to develop a system of outsourcing agricultural advisory services.

An outsourcing system can be oriented towards a number of purposes, as has beenillustrated in the various case studies, i.e.:• Outsourcing for efficiency reasons: non-public sector stakeholders are expected to be

more cost-effective in implementing certain services perceived as priority by the publicsector in its agricultural sector strategy.

• Outsourcing for effectiveness: the public sector does not have sufficient capacity andtherefore needs to either recruit non-public services or increase its own internalcapacity.

• Outsourcing to enhance the AIS: outsourcing as a mechanism to bring in a greaternumber and more diverse stakeholders, with new knowledge and skills, contributingto accelerated and enhanced rural innovation.

• Finally, outsourcing can also be chosen for political reasons, such as to avoid increasingthe number of civil servants, maintaining flexibility, avoiding long-term costs, etc.

2 Identify the major objectives and elaborate the desired outcomes of outsourcing Once the policy framework for outsourcing has been developed at the national level,the main objectives of an outsourcing system need to be identified and elaborated intooutcomes, targets and indicators. Obviously these will vary significantly depending onthe main purpose(s) of outsourcing.

The overall policy background includes a number of key long-term visions for theagricultural advisory services. A long-term vision is needed on the role of the state, theimplementation of the desire to finance all services by the public sector itself and theneed for a gradual move to funding by clients or farmers and other small-scaleentrepreneurs through co-financing and cost-sharing schemes. In addition, views onpublic sector responsibility for pro-poor economic development and equitable rurallivelihood strategies also need to be developed. Some key decisions, each with significantinstitutional implications relate to:

67Guidelines

• decentralization of governance and deconcentration of service provision, leading to asituation in which services substantially shift from being upwardly accountable (to theMinistry of Agriculture) to downwardly accountability (to farmers and other clients);

• developing a private sector agricultural advisory service capacity, enlarging andimproving public sector service provision, or a mix of these;

• making users of advisory services that are at least partially responsible for the financingof such services;

• the role of the state in guiding processes and decisions, such as when it should step in(i.e. at which level of market imperfection).

3 Accompany a clear definition of targets by a vision on interactive learning processes.A clear definition of targets, based on an integral concept of outsourcing, needs to beaccompanied by a vision for interactive learning of innovation in order for this learningto actually take place. The old linear system of technology transfer, which was used underT&V, has been widely discredited but viable alternatives now need to be determined andtested. Pilot projects can be used to test approaches as well as to explore the mechanismsfor outsourcing in this context. Such pilot projects also require a clear vision, correspond-ing targets and learning objectives in order to avoid some of the pitfalls described in thecountry case studies, such as duplication, cost-effectiveness and demand authenticity,rather than complementarity, cost-saving and top-down planning, respectively (seeChapter 4 and Part II of this study). An important step in the learning process forenhanced agricultural advisory service provision through outsourcing is therefore toestablish a clear road map for up-scaling and out-scaling based on the institutional lessonslearned in pilot projects.

Enabling environment

4 Involve key groups of stakeholders An enabling environment for establishing an outsourcing system means involving keygroups of stakeholders, such as the central and local governments, public and privateagricultural service providers, as well as farmers and local agro-entrepreneurs and theirorganizations. An important key step in the development process is to analyse an AKISfor a value or supply chain, theme or geographic entity, and to identify the primarystakeholders as well as their functions. Such an analysis goes beyond the widelypropagated need to make inventories of farmers’ organizations and other forms of socialcapital as well as inventories of (potential) agricultural service providers. The analysis alsoneeds to look into the policy environment, the level of interaction, the functions andcapacities of the various stakeholders, as well as their performance in relation to thesystem objectives. Useful tools for such an analysis include the Rapid Analysis ofAgricultural Knowledge Systems, ‘RAAKS’, (Engel and Salomon, 1997), the Analysis ofAgricultural Innovation Systems CTA/MERIT/KIT, 2005) and others such as thosereferred to in the CORDEMA Approach (URT, 2004b in Part II, Heemskerk et al.,2003). A special focus here will be on the role that the identified stakeholders canpotentially play in an outsourcing system (to be developed), and to determine thepotential mechanisms for interaction.

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5 Analyse experience of outsourcing Based on the analysis of the existing experience of outsourcing in the current and othersystems, an analysis can then be made of the required enabling environment. Thisanalysis can have local (at the district level) as well as national dimensions (policyaspects). Particularly important are the contextual factors that determine stakeholderfunctions in relation to the anticipated functions in a system that uses outsourcing. Theuse of stakeholder-function matrices is recommended, as these help to highlight theconditions for success.

The required performance of the system depends on the main purpose of outsourcingand should be measured in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of advisory services.Furthermore, interactive learning for innovation will often require drastic changes in thecontext. Examples of policies, legislation and regulations to be developed are: policies onthe empowerment of different stakeholder categories, criteria development andregistration for contracting purposes of all qualified agricultural service providers, as wellas policies on the roles of the local government (and local service provision) in relation tothe private sector, farmers’ organizations, and the central government (see also Box 1 inChapter 2).

5.3 Management of the outsourcing system

Interactive learning and accountability

6 Enhance learning through M&E The increase in the provision of services by involving a wide variety of agricultural serviceproviders, based on farmers’ demands, can only lead to sustained and enhancedperformance if these same farmers take a strong role in monitoring and evaluating theseservice providers. Farmers’ feedback on the performance of service providers (based onarticulated demand), combined with self-assessment by service providers (based on theagreed contract), is facilitated by local programme managers (implemented directly bythe contracting agency or contracted out) and leads to learning on enhanced serviceprovision. At the same time, a key service that should also be provided concernsinteractive learning for agricultural innovation. Contracted agricultural service providersfacilitate the interactive learning of stakeholders in the chain (producers, traders,processors, etc.). Monitoring is therefore essential for downward accountability andclient-orientation of the service provision, as well as for interactively following theprogress of learning for innovation.

7 Accountability and controlA third monitoring element is needed for upward accountability of the agriculturalservice provider towards the contracting agency and relates to the control and auditingfunction. The contractor analyses whether contracts are being implemented as agreedbased on feedback from clients. This can also be used in connection with the decisionsconcerning payments of next instalments in the contracts, which should be based on thetimely achievement of identified milestones. Monitoring contract performance foraccountability reasons also requires special guidelines that are different from themonitoring for learning purposes.

Guidelines

Management procedures

The various outsourcing programmes referred to in the national case studies havedeveloped guidelines for implementing the functions related to outsourcing services.However, their quality and depth varies substantially. Some examples are given in Box 5.Table 7 illustrates the wide variety of the required sets of guiding instructions for thevarious stakeholders in agricultural advisory service provision within the Tanzanian ASDP.

The main steps in the management process, all of which require a role by the variousstakeholder categories, are as follows:

8 Registering and selecting agricultural service providersA system of registering service providers for different services at different levels needs tobe developed based on the previously prepared inventory of service providers, includingthe quality and performance standards required. Agreement is needed on the type ofcontracting process to be followed. A balance or ‘best-fit’ scenario needs to be developed,based on available demand and supply of services and the need for additional capacitydevelopment. Special programmes might be required in order to develop a local capacityof (private) agricultural service providers.

9 Negotiating contractual terms It is important to develop procedures and manuals for implementing a system ofoutsourcing agricultural advisory services. This will involve negotiations betweenstakeholders concerning the expected quality of service provision criteria, the level ofremuneration and the contributions by the various stakeholders in terms of co-financingand cost-sharing aspects.

10 Transitioning resourcesThe main emphasis in this step is to develop a capacity strengthening programme for allparties involved, based on agreement between all relevant parties and stakeholders on the

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Box 5 Existing outsourcing management manuals

Mozambiqueº Manual for the outsourcing of extension in Mozambique (12 pages). Draft Versionº Preliminary guidelines in the Sector Strategy (PROAGRI I, 2003) and the National

Extension programme (ASP, 2005) (In: Part II Mozambique case)Ugandaº National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS): Programme Implementation Manual (79

pages); five sections, with two on outsourcing of services (NAADS, 2001) (In: Part II Ugandacase)

Tanzaniaº ASDP. District Implementation Guidelines: Volume 2: District Level Interventions.

September 2005 (130 pages) (URT, 2006) (In: Part II Tanzania case)Maliº Procedure manual for the pilot on transferring agricultural extension to the non-public sector

(12 pages). Draft version (MDR, 2002) (In: Part II Mali case)

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roles to be played by each participant in the new system. Equally, the source of thefacilitation capacity needs to be clearly identified at this stage and be developed and/orcontracted.

11 Managing relationshipsAdditional elaboration of the various M&E mechanisms for interactive learning andfurther partnership development is also required. Agreement with regard to clear roles forall parties involved in the learning process can be stipulated in contracts such as aMemorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Table 7 Main contents of the Management Guiding Instructions for districtlevel provision of agricultural advisory services in Tanzania

Topic Instructions for: Farmer º District sensitization workshopsgroup º District Memorandum of Understanding: Training of district teams, Needs empowerment Assessment, Targeting

º Service contracts;º Training FFSº Curriculum workshop, Training of facilitatorsº FG strengthening and establishmentº Study toursº Farmer networks and Farmer Foraº Ward Farmer Foraº Ward Agricultural Resource Centresº District Farmer Foraº Technology development

Advisory º District awarenessService º Identification and registration of private agricultural service providersProvision º Contracting modalitiesManagement º Building information management capacitiesby the Local º Participatory planning and M&EGovernment º Formulation of village plansAdministration º Disbursements

º Financing servicesº Public procurement regulationsº Voucher or coupon contracts19

º Procurement process and cycleº Implementation of the procurement management unitº Training needs assessment

Source: URT, 2006, in Part II.

Guidelines

19 Using vouchers or coupons and/or a graduated fee system to facilitate the fair distribution ofservices over various clients (URT, 2006a. In: Part II Tanzania case)

5.4 Capacity development

Background

Agricultural innovation requires interactive learning between stakeholders in the AIS.Institutional, organizational and individual capacity development is needed in order tomake this happen. An effective outsourcing system contributes to enhanced agriculturalinnovation if these capacities are sufficiently strengthened. A balanced approach entailsa careful needs assessment of the required capacities for effective interaction betweenthe critical stakeholders (local government authorities, agricultural service providers andfarmers’ organizations), the enhanced role of the organizations themselves, as well asspecific competencies within these organizations. Apart from the three main levels ofcapacity development indicated, cross-cutting needs also exist, such as the coaching ofindividuals and organizations, neutral facilitation of interactive learning processesbetween key stakeholders in the value chain (for learning with regard to value-additionand productivity) as well as between stakeholders in the agricultural advisory servicessystem (for process learning). The entire capacity development component and the wayto analyse, plan and implement such a programme, needs specific guidelines that can bebased on defined targets for each of the three levels, and the use of action learning andlearning by-doing tools to improve the process.

Institutional development

12 Establish roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved and mechanisms forinteraction

Institutional capacity development requires clear roles and responsibilities to be assignedto all parties involved (see Section 5.3) as well as mechanisms for useful interaction. Thefunding of these interactive mechanisms and the resulting actions also requires (at least)joint agreement on how the available funds should be used. Such funds are generallyadministered at the district or sub-national level (provincial/zonal) administration, as isoften the case with competitive research funds. Some type of multi-stakeholdermanagement of the financial resources can best serve the ownership and transparency ofthe use of such funds. This will require agreement on the purposes, modalities andguidelines for operation (Heemskerk et al., 2005). This institutional capacity develop-ment will have a direct influence on the performance and quality of the outsourcingsystem; its monitoring is another element that needs to be agreed upon between the keystakeholders (WB, 2005); see also Box 6.

As emphasized earlier, a major risk of the tendering process, which is generally part of theoutsourcing mechanism, is the limited information sharing between potentialcompetitors. This influences essential institutional learning, which is important not onlyin terms of the functioning of the AIS, but also with regard to the performance of theoutsourcing mechanisms.

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Organizational development

As illustrated earlier, institutional innovation (such as the outsourcing of agriculturaladvisory services) can only be implemented successfully if the corresponding stakeholders(such as local government authorities, agricultural service providers and farmers’organizations) have sufficient organizational capacity to play their envisaged roles.

Table 8 Stakeholder-function matrix in agricultural advisory servicesoutsourcing systems

Stakeholder-functions Central and local Public and private Farmers’ organizationsin managing government agricultural service outsourcing systems providersPlanning, budgeting Regulations at Co-funding of service Cost-sharingand funding central level, local provision by private

level enforcement companies (input/output marketing)

Demanding services Bring long-term Bring in some Key role in demanding and procurement issues into view and entrepreneurial and identifying types of

ensuring funding issues servicesService provision Management and As part of contract For contracts and through

facilitation services and based on ToR co-financing in kindMonitoring and Overall quality Supply of progress Feedback on ASP; evaluation control, regular field reports; self- performance

visits and report assessments monitoring; analysis participatory M&E

Source: This study.

Organizational capacity development with regard to outsourcing is relevant in relation tothe four main functions (see Table 8): management (facilitating the planning, budgeting,funding); demanding services and procurement; implementation and provision of the

73Guidelines

Box 6 Some important elements of institutional capacity development

The following list includes some of the elements to be addressed and agreed upon by localstakeholders in outsourcing services.

• Multi-stakeholder analysis of the system, contributing to a consensus on the needs forintervention and the roles and purposes of outsourcing.

• Development of a local multi-stakeholder platform in which roles and responsibilities aredetermined.

• Agreement on the joint management of public funds for the outsourcing of AAS and thecontribution of each actor to these funds.

• Achieving transparency in the administration of the funds.• Agreement on the interaction with other districts and similar platforms.

Source: This study.

required services; as well as overall monitoring and control. In other words: the capacityof farmers to demand, the capacity of service providers to supply and the capacity of localpublic authorities to manage the interaction between all parties for learning (WB, 2005).

13 Develop the capacity of farmers and their organizations to demand servicesDeveloping the capacity to demand rests with the farmers’ organizations, the communityor a representative CBO. This aspect is crucial for effective implementation of this systemin which deconcentration and demand-driven are key words. Empowering farmers’groups by strengthening their capacity in terms of agricultural innovation development isalso critical (Heemskerk et al., 2004, Wennink et al., 2006, 2007.

14 Develop the capacity of providers to supply services Similarly, the capacity to supply services needs to be improved by developing an inventoryof agricultural service providers, developing criteria for registering the various categoriesand related capacities of service providers, as well as the gaps where improvement andstrengthening is needed. The guidelines would therefore include contractor certificationprocedures, required capacity to comply and to register, as well as a registration system forpre-qualified agricultural service providers. Capacity development of service providers willalso include aspects such as the development of new competencies in areas such asbusiness management skills, new enterprises and value chains, farmer group empower-ment and rural livelihood strategies.

15 Develop local government capacity to manage interaction Local government authorities (in particular) and national governments (in general) willhave to adapt to new roles of programme and contract management rather thanprogramme implementation. Special competencies to be developed include contractnegotiation, contractor performance and compliance monitoring, as well as financialcontrol. The transition from public agricultural service providers, such as moving publiclyemployed extension workers into privately operating agencies and businesses, forms aspecial challenge that will require major attitude changes. Based on the principles offarmer-to-farmer extension, as well as action-learning principles (such as the FFSconcept), farmers’ groups and organizations can also develop into agricultural serviceproviders, although this will require substantial support.

5.5 Concluding remarks

The main reason for introducing an outsourcing mechanism for agricultural advisoryservices to effectively contribute to enhanced agricultural innovation is to achieveinteractive learning at the local level. In order for the system to function, all relevantparties and stakeholders (i.e. local government authorities, farmers’ organizations, pluspublic and private agricultural service providers) need to be involved from the verybeginning in establishing the purpose, objectives, roles and implementation guidelines.

In summary, the main additional guidelines (from an AIS perspective) relate to theestablishment of this joint development of agreed stakeholder roles, the required attitudesand resource allocation in the learning process for enhanced agricultural innovation, towhich outsourcing (as an institutional innovation) can make a significant contribution.

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Rivera, W.M., M. Kalim Qamar, and H.K. Mwandemere, 2005. Enhancing coordination amongAKIS/RD actors: An analytical and comparative review of country studies on agricultural knowledge andinformation systems for rural development (AKIS/RD). Research, Extension and Training DivisionSustainable Development Department FAO, Rome, 2005. www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn3/ docs/kn3_050901d_en.pdf

Rivera, W.M., 2001. ‘The Invisible Frontier: the limits of privatization and decentralization’. In:F. Brewer (ed.), Agricultural Extension Systems: An International Perspective. North Chelmsford, MA:Erudition Books.

Rivera, W.M., and M.K. Qamar. 2003. Agricultural Extension, Rural Development and the Food SecurityChallenge. Rome: FAO, Extension, Education and Communication Service

Rivera, W.M., and W. Zijp. (2002). Contracting for Agricultural Extension: International Case Studies andEmerging Practices. NY: CABI Publishing.

Rivera, W.M., W. Zijp, and G. Alex, 2000. Contracting for extension. Review of emerging practices.World Bank.

Steenhuijsen Piters, B. de, W. Heemskerk, and F. van der Pol, 2003. ‘The public and private agriculturalresearch discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa: a case of Romeo and Juliet?’ In: Faces of Poverty.Capabilities, mobilization and institutional transformation. Proceedings of the International CeresSummer School 2003. Amsterdam, 23-26 June. Published by Amsterdam Research Institute forGlobal Issues and Development Studies, the Netherlands.

Thompson, J. (www.internetbasedmoms.com/ internet-marketing/definition-of-outsourcing.html)Umali, D.L., and L. Schwartz, 1994. Public and private agricultural extension: beyond traditional frontiers.

World Bank discussion paper 236.Vining, A., and S. Globerman. 1998. ‘Contracting-out health care services: a conceptual framework’.

Health Policy 26: 77-96.WB, 2005. Agricultural Investment Note.

www-esd.worldbank.org/ais/Module03/ pdf/mod_03_01.pdf WB, 2006. Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to go beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems.

ARD, Agriculture and Rural development, World Bank.Wennink, B., and W. Heemskerk, 2006. Farmers’ organizations and agricultural innovation. Case studies

from Benin, Rwanda and Tanzania. Bulletin 374. KIT Publishers, Amsterdam.Wennink, B., E.S. Nederlof, and W. Heemskerk, 2007. Access of the poor to agricultural services: the role

of farmers’ organizations in social inclusion. Bulletin 376. KIT Publishers, Amsterdam.World Bank, 2007. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for development. World Bank,

Washington.

References

Glossary

Outsourcing (or contracting out)Contracting out of private services on public funds. Outsourcing is the act of giving a third party theresponsibility of running what would otherwise be an internal system or service

Insourcing (or contracting in)Acquiring private funds for public services

InnovationAccessing and applying knowledge for improved practices. Appropriate mix of the technology, theinstitutional and organizational arrangements and the attitudes and mindsets

Agricultural Innovation systemSystem of various stakeholders and functions that enhance technological, organizational and institutionalinnovation. A network of organizations, enterprises, and individuals that focus on bringing newproducts, new processes, and new forms of organization into social and economic use, together with theinstitutions and policies that affect their behaviour and performance (World Bank, 2007)

ExcludabilityDegree to which users can be excluded from using services through payments

SubtractabilityDegree to which the use of services subtract from the user’s ability to obtain the same product

InstitutionRules of engagement between stakeholders

Best-fitSituation-specific option rather than a blueprint or blanket solution

SubsidiarityImplementation of a function at the level or stakeholder where (or who) can do so the most efficiently

Capacity developmentThe process by which individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, and societies increase their abilityto perform core functions, solve problems, define and achieve objectives, as well as understand andsustainably deal with development issues (Babu and Sengupta, 2006)

Social capitalInstitutions, relationships, attitudes and values that govern interactions among people and contribute toeconomic and social developmen

79Glossary

Part IICase studies on

outsourcing agriculturalservices

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1 Outsourcing experiences inUgandaClesensio Tizikara, Prisca Ndagire, Francis Byekwaso and Dan Kisauzi

1.1 Context

Uganda’s major transformation towards economic growth and poverty reduction began inthe late 1980s with the adoption of the ‘Vision 2025 Strategy’, which set out the broadnational ambitions (Tizikara et al., 2006). The ‘Poverty Eradication Action Plan’ (PEAP)outlined the necessary policy actions for social transformation. The low productivity inthe agricultural sector was diagnosed as resulting from poorly functioning farmer-market-extension-research linkages and the lack of sustained success by the research andextension systems to respond to the real needs of the farmers (Tizikara et al., 2006).

In response to these issues a comprehensive ‘Plan for the Modernization of Agriculture’(PMA) was adopted in order to address the factors that undermine agriculturalproductivity, namely: poor husbandry (crops, livestock and natural resources), minimumuse of improved inputs, limited access to technical advice, inadequate access to credit,poor transport, communication and marketing infrastructures, and insecure land tenureand user rights. Reforms to the national extension system by establishing the ‘NationalAgricultural Advisory System’ (NAADS)1 became the main driving elements behind theimplementation of the PMA. The joint-donor/government-financed NAADS programmefocused on increasing farmers’ access to improved knowledge, technologies, informationand associated services that would address the needs and opportunities of (mainly poorsmallholder) farmers in a sustainable manner.

Core aspects of the NAADS programme include the shift from public to privateextension service provision and giving smallholders access to relevant services, which isalso achieved by ‘outsourcing’, i.e. the contracting out of services by the local governmentadministration on the basis of these farmers’ demands.



In order to make this coordinating role of outsourcing services possible, NAADS was setup as a statutory parastatal organization with a stakeholder Board and an ExecutiveSecretariat. The tendering and contracting procedures at local (district) levels were

Outsourcing experiences in Uganda

1 At the same time the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), mainly represented by theNational Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), was also reformed.

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modified to allow for sufficient farmer control over the awarding of contracts for services.Quality assurance standards, regulations and guidelines, as well as procedures for routinetechnical audits, were developed as mechanisms to check compliance, competence andcapacity of advisory service providers (ASPs). Private ASPs were expected to register,based on the 2004 Guidelines for Registration of ASPs2, which require an application feeand annual registration fee. The relevant parliamentary legislation provided forrecognizing and registering farmers’ organizations (FOs) and platforms at various levels,and their empowerment to manage public funds and contract service providers within thedecentralized administrative framework. Farmers come together in informal groups thatare then facilitated to form FOs (i.e. comprising Farmer Groups (FGs) at parish, sub-county or district level), which are legally registered under the NGO Statute (NGOsregistered at district level) or community-based organizations (CBOs), registered at sub-county level), or under the Cooperative Act (primary societies).


The shift from a public extension service system to a more pluralistic advisory servicessystem (based on contracting services using public funds) required major changes in therelationships between stakeholders as well as organizational reform. The key stakeholdersin the outsourcing process are the governments (at local and national level), FOs and theASPs. The responsibilities of public employees have shifted from being service providersto quality assurers, by developing quality standards, registering ASPs, monitoring andevaluating (M&E) the effectiveness and impact of programmes, and technical auditing.

The administrative and governance structure within which the NAADS programme isbeing implemented consists of the National and Local Council (LC) structures3. Sub-

Box 1 The national agricultural advisory services programme in Uganda

The main NAADS principles are: client-empowerment, decentralization, efficiency drive, rolesfor the private sector and civil society, contractor-provider accountability, separation betweenextension service management and provision, diversity in funding, incentive systems andpartnership development. Among other things, NAADS was designed to: 1 create alternative options for financing and providing advisory and technical services

appropriate for various types of farmers;2 shift from public to private advisory service provision, while ensuring more decentralization,

to bring the control of advisory services closer to the farmers; 3 empower subsistence farmers to access private extension services and market information; 4 develop private sector service capacity, professional capability and systems; and, 5 enhance the commercialization of agriculture, including intensifying production and

specialization.

Source: GOU/NAADS, 2000.

2 www.naads.or.ug/publications/guidelines3 The local government structure comprises districts, counties, sub-counties, parishes, and then

villages.

county councils are the leading local government entities for fulfilling the key functions inoutsourcing: planning, implementation, funding/contracting, monitoring and evaluation.

Through elective representation, the FGs constitute ‘Farmer Fora’ (FFs) at different levelsin the local government structure. At sub-county level the FFs are responsible forcontracting ASPs as well as monitoring projects to ensure that farmers get value formoney from the contracts (NAADS, 2005a, 2005b; Tizikara et al., 2006). The process ofempowering FFs has sometimes been characterized by conflicts between their leadershipand the local political elite and/or leadership of other FGs. Some elected councillors donot see the need for a parallel group of farmers taking procurement decisions. Thefarmers, for their part, insist that politicians often take decisions based on vested interests.

An initial inventory of existing ASPs was carried out at the start of the outsourcing process.The study indicated that there was only a limited number of competent service providersavailable at national level and, in the districts and sub-counties, these mainly consisted ofinternational NGOs, a few local NGOs, commercial consultancy companies, andprofessional associations. A register of eligible ASPs was then created and maintained at thenational and lower administrative levels. Only registered ASPs were eligible for contracting,implying that mainly firms, and not individuals, could be contracted. The process and costof forming official companies excluded several potential ASPs. Few, if any, had an existingcapacity to provide a diverse range of advisory services over a large geographic area or formultiple enterprises, but they did have specific expertise relating to a particular productionsystem. The minimum educational qualification for inclusion on the outsourcing registerwas set as a first degree, except for some enterprises (e.g., a bee-keeping company).

Competency and capacity development strategies

In order for the outsourcing mechanism to work, massive capacity development wasrequired for FOs, service providers (advisory and facilitating agencies) and local govern-ment administration. NAADS has facilitated both the strengthening of the demand(farmers’ groups and organizations) as well as enhancing the supply of advisory services(FOs, private ASPs, and NGOs). As a strategy to achieve the privatization of agriculturaladvisory services, NAADS sought to empower FOs to become the central stakeholders inthe new outsourcing system. FO development within the sub-county focused on: 1 identifying existing FGs; 2 forming new ones based on common interests; 3 capacity development of groups; and 4 formation and capacity development of FFs.

NGOs and community-based facilitators were recruited to facilitate this empowermentprocess. Empowered FOs collectively articulated their own needs and were also able toinvest in, and contribute to, payment for services provided through direct financialcontributions or by donating their time for meetings and training. FOs demanded valuefor money and were able to exert effective demands for agriculture-related services.Training was a central part of the process to ensure that groups acquired skills to runtheir affairs efficiently and effectively. Support also focused on learning and capacitydevelopment for poor farmers (especially women farmers and other vulnerable groups),

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to innovate, use appropriate technologies, and organize themselves to make effectivedemands.

An initial inventory was conducted to assess available ASP capacity, identify eligibleservice providers that satisfy minimum standards for various types of assistance, as wellas to identify good practices (NAADS, 2005c). The empowered and organized FGs haveseriously strained the capacity of the advisory services available. The majority of the FGsare demanding know-how for enterprises in which they lack previous farming experienceor where they lack access to information and technologies for profitable farming. Linkedto this is the affordability of available technologies and the ability of ASPs to easily accessthe required information. Service providers are expected to bring themselves up to thecapacity and standards necessary to provide satisfactory services. However, NAADSsupports orientation and capacity building of ASPs and other relevant stakeholders inorder to facilitate satisfactory provision and financing of advisory services. As a result ofprior public-sector dominance in providing advisory services, support was also given tonational organizations so they could reorient their mindsets towards private sector serviceprovision, retrench (called ‘de-layering’) and ‘retool’ (or retrain) extension staff, anddevelop public service provider technical skills and training. Apart from ‘learning bydoing’, training for private sector ASPs is only included in a few well-defined areas.

The capacity development strategy for local government administration (LGA) focuses onthe technical and administrative staff, as well as local politicians and district tender boardmembers. The emphasis is on contracting services, clarifying institutional issues (i.e. the‘rules of the game’) and these officials’ roles and responsibilities, as well as on encouragingthe facilitation of direct links between farmers and the market sector.

An LGA communication and information strategy requires content, skills and linksbetween ASPs, facilitators and end-users. Access to information by community membersand emerging commercial farmers requires facilitation. The use of community-basedfacilitators/mentors provided hands-on experience, counselling and moral support, andthe adaptation of information. Mentorship complements and reinforces advisory servicesimplemented under short-term contracts, which often do not provide for follow-up andconsolidation. The advisory services need to be knowledge-based and be sufficientlyflexible to be able to respond to new demands. Strategies are needed to ensure that thefacilitation skills required for priority setting, impact assessment, adoption, and providingan enabling environment are actually available. Incentives need to be part of contracts toattract the skills necessary to articulate demand and provide advisory services, particularlyin distant and conflict-ridden areas.



Three main criteria were used to set priorities in the planning process at farmers’ level, i.e.: 1 livelihood systems and strategies, market conditions and policies, institutions and risks; 2 potential impact of a technology/enterprise; and, 3 research and advisory services capacity, given available resources.

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This process allowed a portfolio of enterprises and cross-cutting issues (such as genderand natural resource management), as well as the research and advisory service require-ments to be identified. At the community level, issues of inclusiveness, while alsorecognizing client differentiation (gender, common interest, especially in enterpriseselection, group formation, etc.) became serious implementation concerns. Farmers areshifting from subsistence cultivation, through to market-oriented production andcommercial production. The diverse nature of rural households in terms of wealth, peoplewith diseases, life-cycle stages, production systems and access to information and marketsimplies that the clients demanding research and advisory services cannot be assumed to behomogenous. The needs of the various types of farmers need to be separated, and differentapproaches identified for providing them with adequate agricultural advisory services.Moving women farmers (in particular) further out of poverty, entails identifying varioustypes of services to be contracted out.

The contracting arrangements specifically target poor and female farmers throughsupportive gender-responsive procedures and guidelines for accessing contract services.A dual approach is followed based on enterprise development/promotion, as well asstrategic enterprise development. This is aimed at promoting agricultural intensificationand strengthening the integration of farmers and local entrepreneurs into attractivecommodity value chains through agribusiness cluster formation, such as out-growerschemes. An ‘agribusiness cluster’ consists of the farmers and entrepreneurs (includingFGs) that are involved in the ‘same’ industry, and all the related (specialized) businessdevelopment and financial services within a well-defined target region. Without beingorganized into commercially oriented and viable farmer organizations, small farmerscannot be effectively integrated into the value chains involving production, agro-processing, traders and trader organizations and commercial-oriented entities. Constraintsto integrating smallholder farms into the supply chains of selected enterprises andcommodities can be divided (Tizikara et al., 2006) into: 1 access to knowledge and skills; 2 access to technologies and information on product quality measures; 3 economies of scale and market transaction costs; 4 access to credit; 5 advisory services transaction costs; and, 6 incentives for innovation.


Both public (agricultural research and extension) and private services (export and inputmarket-oriented) have been responding to the farmers’ demands for advisory services. TheMinistry of Agriculture has been providing agricultural extension services down to theparish level through publicly-employed extension workers using the training and visit(T&V) extension management system. The provision of private extension services existedsimultaneously and was largely practiced for tobacco, sugar cane, cotton and non-traditional export crops e.g. vanilla, fruits. Private extension was based on voluntarycontracts between farmers and private processing/input-supply companies, which alsooften provided technical assistance to small-scale farms. Although financed by the


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company these services were eventually, although indirectly, paid for by the farmers, as isthe case with present-day export levies destined for research and advisory services.

The emergence and rapid expansion of NGO-supported activities marked thegeographical expansion of wider experimentation with private extension models. NGOstransformed themselves from providers of emergency assistance to implementers ofdevelopment programmes, attracting increased donor support for agricultural develop-ment. Traditional multilateral and bilateral donors believed that national/internationalNGOs were more efficient, effective and flexible than the public extension service, andNGOs became dominant (among others) in developing farmers’ organizations. However,many of the national NGOs do not have adequate technical and financial managementcapacity to plan and implement projects and programmes, hence their interest inoutsourced (small) contracts. NGOs generally play an important facilitating role by: 1 mobilizing and organizing farmers; 2 providing training in organization and management, literacy and numeracy; 3 providing technical and financial assistance to FOs; 4 supporting local technological innovations; and 5 raising support for FO activities.

The quality of services is still improving as NGOs gain experience through the out-sourcing programme. The capacity of ASPs has generally been strengthened and mosthave acquired offices, office equipment and transport facilities as well as elaboratemanagement structures. Service provision by NGOs is now reaching a wide majority offarmers throughout the district (Tizikara et al., 2006).


The introduction of outsourcing advisory services has led to dramatic changes in the rolesand responsibilities of the various stakeholders, which has led to the need to reconsiderthe relationships of the private sector, including those of farmers, with the (decentralized)government structures. The LGA is assigned a more proactive role in facilitating (non-market) coordination mechanisms and complementary investments, e.g. in specializedresearch and development (R&D) activities for specific agribusiness clusters, as well asmaking strategic choices of target locations and commodities. The approach empowerslocal stakeholders (farmers, entrepreneurs, women, men, and the younger generations) todevelop new ideas – and put them into practice. A wide array of stakeholders (NAADS,NGOs, FGs, LGAs and the private sector) participates in priority setting, informed bythe real opportunities that each group has.

Advisory service providers require an effective mechanism for quickly absorbing the mostrecent information on shifts in markets and other livelihood opportunities, and need tofunction as a flexible organization which can respond to new demands and informstakeholders, the local community and funding agencies in a timely fashion. Innovativeapproaches for mobilizing, managing and providing advisory services were developed inthe NAADS context in terms of new stakeholder relationships; funding arrangements;government, donor and public-private sector relationships; process management; andorganizational development. The changes affected entrenched behaviour, attitudes and

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procedures and demanded a complete change in mindsets. The noticeable changesconcern process pathways and institutional behaviour and arrangements; workingmethodologies and attitudes; institutional capacities and development (see Table 1).Farmers’ roles, capacities and their relationships with ASPs and the LGAs are the mostsignificant of these changes.

Table 1 Changing roles of key stakeholders in the outsourcing process

Partners Original situation Target situation (pre-NAADS, 2001) (2009 and beyond)

Farmers at the • Not organized • Organized FGsgrassroots level • Only recipients of services • Managing natural resources

• Focus on food self-sufficiency • Engaged in service provision • No influence on use of public funds • Farming taken as business• Not contributing funds • Managing services provision

• Contribute significant funds Civil Society • Through public extension workers • CSOs as service providersOrganizations • Production input supply • Support private input supply(CSOs) and Non- • Farmer capacity building • Institutional developmentGovernmental • No integration with LGAs • Part of government plansOrganizations • Varying interests and points • Based on farmers’ needsAgricultural • Non-existent or only NGOs • Fully privatizedAdvisory services • Little linkage and insufficient capacity • Optimal capacity establishedLGA and Local • Information dissemination • Coordination of information flowsCouncils • Recruitment of extension personnel • FOs and LGAs fund services

• Financial management • Less coordination responsibility• Overall coordination • Harmonization• Approving plans and budgets • Downward accountability• Participation in campaigns • Increased political support

Source: Adapted from Tizikara et al., 2006, Obaa et al., 2005.

1.4 Outsourcing functions

Background

Three main functions exist in relation to outsourcing, and these relate to the three mainstakeholder categories: FOs and procurement, LGAs and funding, and ASPs forimplementation. The LGA funds, contracts and supervises the the agricultural advisoryservices provision through demand-driven procurement by FGs within a geographiclocation or value chain. The management of such a programme of outsourcing services isdecentralized along the principle of subsidiarity, to district and sub-county leveladministration, depending on the issues at stake. The NAADS programme provides forthe development of procedures and guidelines for contracting advisory services and thecorresponding key functions and processes (NAADS, 2001). The Operations Manualsdefine: administrative procedures, sanction requirements, delegation of authority,procurement procedures, fund flow systems, accounting and auditing requirements,


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disbursement procedures, operation of the Special Accounts4, formats, terms, conditionsand standards for Contracts and Memoranda of Agreement between various participatingagencies, as well as M&E arrangements.

Procurement

The NAADS approach to articulating demand for potential outsourcing consists ofcombining participatory assessments by farmers with updates from informed facilitatorsof the potential opportunities available within a specific enterprise. This priority-settingstrategy for future interventions is to target opportunities of greatest potential or highestreturns/impact and likelihood of success. Priorities relate to opportunities for ruralcommunities to intensify, diversify, add value or benefit from employment and small-business creation.Identified activities are generally implemented by outsourcing services, either throughcontracts or via a variety of partnership agreements. Services are outsourced fromspecialized departments, institutes or programmes, plus from NGOs and the privatesector. FG Procurement Committees have actively participated in contracting ASPs oftheir choice based on qualifications, experience and track record. The terms of thesecontracts cover all inputs and allow for capacity strengthening of the client organizationsand the service-providing agencies concerned. Contracts are rewarded for effectiveperformance and include reasonable margins for services that allow agencies to build uptheir presence and capability. However, there are also penalties for failure and inadequateservice provision or insufficient impact. Having appreciated that procurement of goods isguided by a set of conditions that must be fulfilled by the supplier, farmers have oftenrejected technologies that do not meet certain specifications.

The exact size and configuration of the contracts varies from case to case and some arehandled by a joint venture of agencies with a mix of specific skills. Some of the large-scalecontracts are awarded for community mobilization and planning activities, while themajority cover the provision of advisory services and other downstream FG support to alarge number of clients and/or over a wide area of coverage, including national and multi-district operations. Smaller and shorter duration contracts are applicable for supplyingspecific training, research and technology development inputs and for providingprofessional management consultancy or advisory services to individual FGs or smallassociations.

Cumbersome procurement periods sometimes affect the effective timing of serviceprovision and their synchronization with farmer empowerment activities. In a number ofcases the quality of services has been compromised by including the CVs of qualifiedindividuals only during the tendering phase and not for the actual implementation ofduties. Core groups of eligible providers are being contracted to identify gaps in skills,and to train and mentor other potential providers in order to meet the standards required

4 A special account is opened as a NAADS District/Sub-county Account to collect NAADSconditional grant funds and the District/Sub-county matching contributions. The accounts areoperated and accounting documents kept at the respective levels in accordance with the LocalGovernment Financial and Accounting Regulations.

by NAADS. This increases the number, spread, and competition among ASPs andreduces reliance on a few (largely international NGO) service providers.

Funding

The national government and donors have developed a long-term agricultural sectorsupport programme that harmonizes the funding structure for NAADS and foresees 77%of all expenditure at sub-county level, 9% at district level and only 14% at national level.Some of the bottlenecks that affect local level budgeting and disbursements for awardedcontracts relate to the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), which constrainsexpansion, causes a low level of co-funding by the districts and sub-counties, and reducesthe number of districts and taxes imposed on contracts and partnerships with the privatesector.

Fund allocation formulae, while ensuring equitable distribution to LGAs, need to guardagainst the movement of funds to districts without the necessary implementation capacity,such as a lack of stakeholder participation mechanisms to maintain accountability toclients. The district and sub-county administrations fund the outsourcing of services tothird-party ASPs. Smooth disbursement of funds to contractors is essential to the successof the outsourcing system. Linking the disbursement of funds to achievements ensuresthat constraints to contract implementation progress can be rapidly identified so thatcorrective action and training can be provided.

Monitoring data suggests a need to pay service providers in instalments based on theirattainment of well-defined outputs/deliverables, without disrupting the continuity ofservice provision. The incentives for different stakeholders to participate vary widely andinclude enhanced productivity/profitability for farmers, enhanced publication records andpromotion of sustainable production methods for researchers, research institutes andNGOs, and income for ASPs. NGOs and CBOs aim at working with farmers’ groupstowards demand-driven service provision but are sometimes also inclined to providematerial incentives to achieve quick results. On the other hand, farmers sometimes tendto form groups in order to extract the immediate material benefits rather than to gainmore long-term social and environmental benefits – this affects the sustainability andinnovative performance of FGs. However, as a result of the new transparency, farmers alsolook at the costs of contracts (the average is about USD 2,500) and demand to be paidfor attending meetings and training sessions organized by ASPs.

Implementation

The service provision programme is implemented by various ASPs that have beenawarded contracts, all based on the agreed approaches, activities and progress indicatorsspecified in their contracts. Implementation is monitored by both the localadministration (as custodian of the contracts), and the farmers (through the various FFs)as the clients and beneficiaries of the services provided.

At the level of community, village and FG activities, farming ASPs and all participatingagencies have M&E responsibility as part of their contract obligations, with FF


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representatives and/or sub-county Production Department personnel operating as thefocal points for recording. Parish Coordinating Committees have been established tomobilize demand for outsourced activities, coordinate planning and information flow,supervise community-based facilitators, and monitor and evaluate the implementationprocess and its outcomes.

At sub-county level, the Production Department Head, Accountant and Chief all havesupervision and oversight responsibilities as part of their routine duties to report to theSub-county Development and Investment Committees on programme progress.

At the district level, the Production Department Head assesses data from the sub-countiesand reports on farmer service contract activities. District specialists are responsible forensuring that the services and goods provided conform to the required contract standards.Service providers are oriented towards the expected standards of service provision andgiven additional training where necessary. The partner platforms participate in jointreview meetings and help to foster cross-institutional learning to enhance collaborationand to reduce the negative effects of competition.

Apart from these upward-accountability processes, a community-based participatoryM&E methodology (NAADS, 2003) has also been developed and piloted. Themethodology aimed at deepening the M&E system for contracted advisory services byestablishing procedures and mechanisms for M&E at the community and farmer grouplevels. Specific programme evaluation takes place every three years to assess the majortasks completed, productivity and other increments obtained, and benefits accrued,compared to baseline data and targets. The scope for continuation, adaptation, expansionand replication of programme activities is specifically highlighted in these impactassessments. Many achievements (especially relating to process) and impacts are notadequately captured, documented and shared.

It is important for the programme to develop tools that will enable districts to adequatelyand timely capture and document impacts, especially at household, group andcommunity levels. The use of participatory M&E approaches based on joint learning andjoint decision-making is particularly important. Nevertheless, the large number of FGs,ASPs and sites involved in the programme causes logistical difficulties for the M&Esystem. By and large, M&E should be viewed as a chance to identify constraints andprovide technical and logistical support, as well as an opportunity to identify cleardissemination pathways based on best practices.

1.5 Performance

Effectiveness

By the end of 2006, the NAADS outsourcing programme was operating in 532 sub-counties located in 64 districts. By 2005, over 12,000 FGs in 280 sub-counties had beenregistered through the programme (out of the existing 20,000), while 73% of these FGsreported receiving outsourced advisory services based on their own involvement(Byekwaso et al., 2004). In addition, gender as well as youth had become an important

consideration in FG formation and enterprise selection, and in 2005 women comprised53% of FG membership.

The effectiveness of FF functioning at district and sub-county levels varies greatly, also interms of their capacities and credibility (NAADS, 2004). Outsourcing is based on thepremise that private sector advisory service provision is more effective than publicextension provision, and even where the latter is still maintained, the private sector playsa significant complementary role. Lessons are learned during implementation, which arethen used to improve performance and further reduce public-sector involvement in theprovision of extension services, and even in their funding.

The public sector roles hinge more on articulating a vision and strategy for promotingthe emergence, consolidation and development of a pluralistic and deconcentrated (to thecommunity level) extension system that is ultimately effective and financially sustainable.Farmers are positive about the system in the sense that their participation in definingwhich services they require has improved. Both male and female farmers also state thatthey have been empowered to judge the quality of good and poor ASPs and exert someinfluence over the contracting process (NAADS, 2005d). Up to 400,000 households(representing 30% of total households) have been reached by the NAADS programme.The value of crop production per acre in 2002/2003 was 15-27% and the income percapita was 41% higher for households that participated in the NAADS outsourcedservices programme compared to those that did not. Average yield increases by enterprisesreported as a result of adopting new technologies/improved practices rose by 31% forcassava, to as high as 140% for beans, 158% for groundnuts and 177% for cookingbananas.

Efficiency

Decentralization has meant that the agricultural extension programme planning andbudgeting functions are now integrated into the LGA. The process was meant to beaccompanied by staff rationalization. Functional powers, means and competence by thepublic sector were to be transferred to farmer-controlled structures and private sectorASPs. Although the local governments are now able to plan their activities and preparetheir own budgets, staff rationalization continues to pose considerable challenges to themanagement and provision of services. Lots of people with high-quality advisory serviceskills are still ‘locked’ into the public service.

One of the main reasons why rationalization has not taken place in districts is that,besides advisory services, other agricultural functions are still performed by the district-level staff, such as: control of diseases, pests and vectors; regulatory services; inspectionand certification; product quality standards; quality assurance; agricultural statistics andplanning. These functions were minimized in the initial proposals for full staffrationalization but have now been recognized by the functional analysis. The outsourcingof services is also not adequately synchronized with the rest of the government’sprogrammes and has remained an alien function.


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A series of assessments conducted in 2005 (NAADS, 2005a, 2006a) indicated that itcosts around UGX5 91,000 per sub-county for FO development (equal to around UGX16-24 per household) for providing advisory services. When the cumulative incrementalbenefits for the first three years of the programme are compared to the actual costs of theprogramme to date, the overall results show that an extra income of USD 10 million peryear was generated by the NAADS programme. The extra income currently being generatedcould easily increase 20-fold to USD 200 million a year, or around USD 10 million perdistrict, through better extension coverage, higher adoption rates and increased acreage.

A number of FGs have claimed that private ASPs are highly paid for the value of servicesthey provide. However, there is no agreed mechanism on how to value the servicesprovided and the fees to be paid to the professional providers. The level of co-financingfor the programme has been limited; on average farmers are currently (2006) contributing2%, with local governments contributing 5% of the costs. The total NAADS budgetallows for 77% to be used at sub-county level, 9% at district level and only 14% atnational level. It is not possible to compare the efficiency of the public and private ASPsbased on the available data. If such an analysis is considered essential, some assumptionsneed to be made, service quality needs to be valued and additional data needs to becollected

Quality of ASPs

Farmers identify their needs, which are then translated into contracts. Farmers alwayselect their own leaders, right from group level up to sub-county level; these leaders ensurethat farmers’ needs are addressed. This has made it very easy for farmers to take action toresolve their problems and follow them up in a collective manner (NAADS, 2005d).Farmers have continued to benefit from appropriate technologies that are expected todirectly address their specified needs in both the short and medium terms. Some farmersare increasingly realizing the importance of meetings in sharing experiences andchallenges, and finding ways to overcome them.

Technology Development Sites (TDSs) have been established and farmers are proud tohost these and do take responsibility for managing them. Some farmers are beingempowered to train fellow farmers, either individually or in groups. While some farmershave willingly co-funded the programme as a result of appreciating the goods and servicesprovided, others have yet to appreciate the rationale of co-funding by different stake-holders. The concept of enterprise selection by farmers has motivated them to engage inthe most profitable enterprises for which advisory services are provided, resulting inincreased farmers’ incomes. Farmer involvement in the contracting process and in M&Eof contract performance has resulted in the capacity to translate their experience withboth good and bad quality service provision into follow-up actions. This has led to thetermination of contracts, blacklisting of poorly performing ASPs, refusal to approvepayments and the compelling of ASPs to compensate for days lost during training(NAADS, 2000a, 2005c).

5 1 Euro=2000 UGX (Ugandan Shilling) in 2006.

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As a result of these developments, the quality of advisory services has steadily increased.A coordination gap with sub-county FFs and FGs was identified and farmers pushed forthe formation of committees at lower, or parish level. These have greatly contributed tomobilizing farmers towards training, co-funding, planning and monitoring programmeperformance. Some farmers appreciate that the lack of knowledge, information andtechnologies is one of the key constraints to profitable farming. Improved skills inplanning and report writing mean that FOs and platforms are now participating inmaking detailed work plans and reports. When drawing up training programmes, sectorspecialists consult the farmers on the appropriate training venues and time. Improvedrecord keeping, with farmers maintaining an attendance list and signed visits by ASPs,eases follow-up and payment approvals, and is a step towards performance-basedmanagement.

Farmers, both in their respective groups and through regular training sessions, are graduallydeveloping their own work plans, which are approved by farmers’ leaders at the sub-countylevel, who also guide implementation and monitoring. Farmers now often set their owntime and schedule for training by ASPs. Women farmers are gradually taking onenterprises/activities that were formerly only conducted by men, and hence also demandthe related advisory services. Farmers have full powers to decide on how to handle theTDSs, which require management and administration. Formation of new (sub-sub-countylevel) committees was a result of stakeholders’ (especially farmers’) dissatisfaction with theefficiency and effectiveness of services in reaching out and mobilizing farmers to activelyparticipate.

Overall performance summary

The overall conclusion on the performance of the outsourcing system in Uganda, as partof NAADS, is that it works. Agreement exists, also by farmers, on the programme’seffectiveness through complementarity and joining forces. Progress has been made in thenumber of FGs and farmers involved, while more relevant priorities have been addressedbased on farmers’ needs. Needless to say, all this was only possible through considerableinvestments, which go beyond the normal level of public funding, and come closer to thetargets set by NEPAD. Challenges remain in relation to efficiency, which is based on theneed to improve on institutional, organizational and individual capacity development(NAADS, 2005a, 2006b; Benin et al., 2005).

References

Benin, S.l, E. Nkonya, G. Okecho, J. Pender, S. Mugarura, and E. Kato, 2005. Quantifying the impactof the national agricultural advisory services in the Uganda rural livelihoods. IFPRI, NAADS,Kampala, UGANDA.

Byekwaso, F., A.R. Semana, and A.A. Obua-Ogwal, 2004. Agricultural Advisory Services in Uganda –A Synopsis. In: Proceedings of the First Networking Symposium on Innovations in AgriculturalAdvisory Services in Sub-Saharan Africa, Kampala, October 2004.

GOU/NAADS, 2000. Master Document of the NAADS Task Force and joint Donor Group. MAAIF,Entebbe, October 20, 2000.

NAADS, 2001. Program Implementation Manuals. NAADS Secretariat, Kampala. September 2001.


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NAADS, 2003. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation for Uganda’s NAADS programme – Developmentof Methodology, Capacity Building and Piloting. NAADS Secretariat, February 2003.

NAADS, 2004. Guidelines for Registration of Service Providers (www.naads.or.ug/publications/guidelines). NAADS, 2005a. Mid-Term Review of the NAADS Programme in Arua, Kabarole and Mukono Districts.

May 2005.NAADS, 2005b. Proceedings of the MTR. NAADS Secretariat, Kampala, June 2005.NAADS, 2005c. Directory of Service Providers. A report submitted by Nkoola Institutional Development

Associates (NIDA), NAADS Secretariat, Kampala, June 2005.NAADS, 2005d. Farmers Take a Stride – The NAADS Story Book. NAADS Secretariat, Kampala,

September 2005.NAADS, 2006a. A catalogue of ULAMP experience on Farmer Institutional Development – Lessons from

NAADS implementation. NAADS Secretariat, Kampala, April 2006. NAADS, 2006b. Strategy to enhance NAADS Contribution to Rural Development and Transformation.

NAADS, Kampala, October 2006.Obaa, B., J. Mutimba, and A.R. Semana, 2005. Prioritising Farmers’ Extension Needs in a Publicly-funded

Contract System of Extension: A Case Study from Mukono District, Uganda. AgREN Network PaperNo 147, July 2005.

Tizikara, C., P. Ndagire, F. Byekwaso, and D. Kisauzi, 2006. Outsourcing Agricultural Advisory Services:Lessons from the NAADS Programme in Uganda. Case study paper. Royal Tropical Institute,Amsterdam.

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2 Outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services inMozambiqueCustodio Mucavele and Willem Heemskerk

2.1 Context

Agriculture in Mozambique is dominated by 3.2 million small-scale farms, each with anaverage size of just 1.1 ha of land (PROAGRI, 2004; ASP, 2005). This so-called ‘familysector’ contributes 20% to the country’s GDP and 80% to exports, while employing 80%of the workforce. Given this overall situation, the challenge is to mobilize the latentproductive capacity of 3.2 million family farms and to transform agriculture inMozambique from a largely subsistence production system to a more market-orientedsystem, while also improving national and household food security. Mozambique used tohave a commodity-based extension service for commodities such as cotton and cashew,before 1975 under the old colonial rule. Extension systems for general smallholders’livelihoods did not exist, although the local shops (‘cantinas’) often marketed productionsurpluses, provided input, and advised farmers on crop production and marketing. In theearly years of independence agricultural extension for smallholders was limited to anumber of externally funded development projects (Walker et al., 2006)

The public extension service was institutionalized in 1987, within the Ministry ofAgriculture (DNER, 1997; Gemo and Rivera, 2001, Gemo et al., 2003). Publicextension focused on the smallholder family sector and the T&V model was adopted andfinanced by the government of Mozambique, the International Fund for AgriculturalDevelopment (IFAD), World Bank (WB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) (DNER, 1997). A large number of extension providers from the public, privateand ‘third’ (NGO, CBO) sectors have been involved since the 1980s. Internationaldonors, bilateral and multilateral as well as international NGOs, continue to fundextension services, both through the public system (some 50%) and through off-budgetprojects and NGOs.

Private sector extension is mainly funded through the corresponding supply chains suchas those involved with tobacco, cotton and cashew. Agricultural service providers (ASPs)are either contracted directly by the cash crop institutes that are funded by levies (e.g. theCashew Company of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG), Cashew Institute (INCAJU),for cashew and the National Institute of Cotton (IAM) for cotton) or through donorfunds. Farmers’ organizations (FOs) are equally involved in agricultural extension, butmore on a voluntary basis or as individual farmer promoters.

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Since early 1975 Mozambique has always had an advisory service capacity outside thepublic sector, although often funded by the international public sector. During the firstcomprehensive agricultural sector programme (known as ‘PROAGRI I’, 1998-2005), adecision was made to invest public funds not only in the Ministry of Agriculture’s publicadvisory services but to also contract other non-public services. For this reason, out-sourcing pilot projects were started in a few districts and within the context of a fewexport commodity programmes.

This section looks into the experience gained through these pilot projects on outsourcingagricultural advisory services in Mozambique. More specifically the study focuses on twocase studies: 1 the outsourcing of advisory services in two districts by the National Extension

Programme involving provincial and district governments as well as NGO and privateASPs; and,

2 outsourcing in the cashew sector managed by INCAJU and implemented by NGOservice providers.



Mozambique is changing from a rather public-sector-dominated centralist agriculturalextension system to a more pluralistic, decentralized advisory services system in whichcivil society organizations, the private sector, and the public sector operate together, basedon principles of subsidiarity and comparative advantage (Eicher, 2002a, 2000b). Thegovernment structure6 is increasingly being decentralized with emphasis on the roleplayed by districts in district development plans (also for agriculture), rooted in plansmade by the Community Development Committees (CDCs) (MPD, 2005, 2006).

Public contracts with other ASPs were first developed under the first Extension MasterPlan (1999-2004), which was based on Unified Extension Services and the developmentof an integrated National Agricultural Extension System. This involved outsourcing aswell as the use of public extension staff by NGOs, so-called ‘insourcing’ (Gemo et al.,2003). Under the new Agricultural Extension Master Plan (2007-2011) i.e. the nextphase of the comprehensive agricultural sector plan, outsourcing advisory services at thelocal level is further elaborated and scaled up, along with emphasis on developing amultiple service provider system, producer empowerment and partnerships with theprivate sector. This emphasis on multi-stakeholder interaction has gone hand in handwith the ongoing decentralization of the government structure, as well as the emphasisgiven in government policies to the role of the private sector in rural development. At thesame time, the long-awaited deconcentration of agricultural research services to the sub-national zonal level is taking place. This too is based on a more interdisciplinary approach

6 Mozambique is split into: 33 Urban Municipalities, 128 Rural Districts and 394 ‘PostosAdministrativos’ (sub-districts), 1,071 ‘Localidades’ (Localities), and 10,025 ‘Comunidadespovoações’, (communities and traditional chieftainship). Each community is a cluster of smallhamlets and villages (‘Aldeias’), of which there are an estimated 40,000 in the rural areas.

to research and, in some cases, is subjected to mechanisms of competitive funding andoutsourcing at the provincial level, as well as insourcing by NGOs and the private sector.

Legislation has been developed to allow the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the localgovernments to contract NGOs and private ASPs for service provision at all levels. Newlegislation has also been developed to facilitate the formal registration of farmerassociations and cooperative groups.


The National Agricultural Extension System developed under the first Extension MasterPlan is the system under which all extension providers interact, such as the Ministry’sNational Extension Programme and other public extension agencies, as well as NGOs,Private Sector ASPs, Producer Organizations (POs) and farming communities themselves.In the absence of public extension service providers in most parts of the country, privateand third-sector extension service providers (NGOs and civil society organizations) filledthe gap through third-party funding but were, to some extent, coordinated by thenational extension programme, particularly since 1992.

The pluralistic provision of extension services was formally recognized in 1998 in the(then approved) Extension Master Plan. It was anticipated that the pluralistic provisionof extension services would contribute to greater cost effectiveness and enhance farmerresponsiveness compared with the situation where public sector extension is the soleprovider. This could be considered as a system in which ASPs from the public and non-public sector were contracted and financed by national and international public funds.Decentralization of governance and deconcentration of service provision led to a strongerrole by provinces and districts, and hence also under this new pluralistic extensionsystem. However, the District Agricultural Development Plans, on which this systemshould be based, are frequently of poor quality (or non-existent) and do not contemplatethe often complementary roles played by different extension service providers, contractedthrough outsourcing and based on competitive advantage and principles of cost-effectiveness and sustainability.

Capacity strengthening

The priorities for capacity strengthening in the agricultural innovation system (AIS) andin particular in the public advisory system have traditionally been based on individualcapacity building (Gemo, 2006). The emphasis on capacity development is alsoincreasingly shifting to other stakeholders in the system, e.g. farmers’ and communityorganizations (mainly induced by NGOs) and private sector organizations (by someinternational NGOs and donor-supported projects). Equally the interaction betweenthese service providers, clients and the local government has been subject to capacitydevelopment in a variety of decentralization projects.

Mozambique is a country emerging from conflict and therefore facing enormouschallenges in terms of individual, organizational and institutional development. For sometime now attempts have been made to establish a nationwide public extension system

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with government-employed extension workers. However, staff shortages have made thisdifficult and the focus now is on strengthening the entire agricultural advisory system.The context of implementation – such as decentralized operations, stronger roles for FOsand civil society – require new competencies/skills and capacities. Local training institutesare adapting to these new challenges as their graduates are no longer automaticallyentering the public sector and/or require specific competencies, such as facilitation andcommunication skills.

2.3 Advisory services system stakeholders and outsourcing

Background

The agricultural advisory service system in Mozambique is composed of: 1 a wide variety of FOs that express a demand for services; 2 advisory service providers from the pubic sector, private sector and NGOs; and 3 local governments. These all play a role in the outsourcing system.

The National Extension Programme and the wider sector programme still performregulatory, coordinating and institutional development functions.

Demand

Mozambique has several different types of farmers’ associations (Bingen et al., 2000) suchas: 1 simple commodity contract associations that are based initially on the financial

investment capital of a company or traders, where the services available to smallholdersare supply-driven (e.g., associations set up by cotton traders to facilitate input deliveryand marketing);

2 delivery-system associations have been established to help deliver or transfertechnology and the services available to smallholders, and are largely mediated by anagency or programme outside the community (e.g., ‘extension groups’ set up byNGOs to provide agricultural technology and training); and

3 marketing and development associations have emerged from a continuing investmentin human and social capital, where the services available to smallholders are largelydemand-driven (e.g., NGO-assisted groups that receive intensive training in grouporganization and management skills. See Box 2).

Apart from the formally established Community Development Committees, moreeconomically oriented committees, such as the Rural Extension ManagementCommittees, have been established to promote rural development activities and toguarantee participatory planning, M&E and downward accountability (Teclemariam etal., 2000). Groups and associative groups are mostly found at village level and cangraduate into associations or unions of associations, which are officially registered. TheNational Extension Service, through its National and Provincial FO Units, promotes theestablishment of farmers’ groups (FGs). It is mostly NGOs and ‘UNAC’ (the NationalSmallholders Farmers Union) that facilitate group registration into associations, requiring

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the development of business plans and statutes. All these FOs (see also Box 1) play a rolein extension, but they are either not linked to the outsourcing system or are linked onlyindirectly through the ASP. There is no defined role for contracting or monitoring theperformance of ASPs and there is only a limited role in establishing priorities.


The expressed demand by farmers and their organizations is addressed by advisoryservices in three main ASP categories: public extension, NGOs and private companies(see Box 3).

Both public-sector agricultural extension, as well as the private sector in the large exportcommodities (cotton, tobacco and cashew), which have performance contracts withindividual extension workers, have contracted out part of these services thoughoutsourcing arrangements on a pilot scale (see Box 2). Mozambique’s internationaldevelopment partners have also involved NGOs (on a contractual basis) for ruraldevelopment programmes that include advisory services.


Box 3 Availability of agricultural ASPs and coverage

The public extension service employs 579 extension workers, with NGOs having a total of 775and the private sector 216. The level of attrition in the public sector is high; in 2006 it was 11%(7% left and 4% died). In 2006 the National Agricultural Extension Programme directlycontacted 191,629 household members, of which 77,003 were women, and of which 10,494contacts came through outsourcing. In 2006, 89 NGOs were registered to be involved inagricultural service provision operations in a total of 116 districts, of which 33 received nopublic extension service at all. Some 23 private development companies are currently involved inagricultural extension in 57 districts, with only 3 districts having no other form of extension.The public extension system operates in 90 districts, leading to a total of 126 out of 128districts with some form of extension service. The private sector, mainly the cotton and tobaccocompanies, have ensured extension coverage to 259,346 households, including 20,565 throughoutsourcing. The third sector (NGOs and CBOs) provided extension services to 322,700households. In total 773,675 households were contacted in 2006, which equals 24% of the totalnumber of farming households.

Source: DNEA, 2006a.

Box 2 Farmers’ groups and organizations involved in extension activities

MINAG (Ministry of Agriculture) is working with 4,000 FGs with 140,000 members and 1,500associative groups with 45,000 members, or an average (informal) group size of 35 andmembership-based associative group size of 31). The Farmer Field Schools (FFS) form a specialcategory of FGs, which are highly relevant for agricultural extension in Mozambique. Through aparticipatory learning approach FFSs can graduate into strong players in participatory planningand M&E.

Source: DNER, 2004, DNEA, 2006c.

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The private sector (cotton, tobacco and cashew companies) provides agriculturalextension services through input supply stores and through farming, processing ormarketing companies and outgrowers’ schemes. The sector largely operates on the basis ofcontracts and support to individual farmers, but also finances community extensionworkers for crop promotion.

The public sector has contracted cotton concession holders to provide extension serviceson crop diversification. Similarly the cash crop industries use levies to provide acontribution to the commodity institutes, which can contract private companies for cropextension and research. Despite the limited use of inputs, these input supply companieshave a keen interest in providing agricultural information on the use of fertilizers,veterinary drugs, seeds and pesticides. Local input shops and pharmacies in or aroundurban centres provide large segments of the smallholders with technical information,often supported by the pharmaceutical companies. Similarly, seed production associationsincreasingly play a role in private agricultural extension.

The public extension service operates through groups formed at the community level.Advisory service provision by farmers’ organizations is emerging, for example theNational Smallholder Farmers’ Union (UNAC), through its national union andprovincial or district networks, facilitates the exchange of knowledge and informationbetween farmers’ associations. Volunteer trainers at the provincial level are involved in FGformation and facilitate exchange visits between associations. A similar mechanism existswithin the Commercial Farmers Association Wing of the Federation of EconomicAssociations in Mozambique (CTA, 2004). Considerable experience has been gained with‘farmer promoters’ (veterinary assistants, cashew sprayers, value chain extension workersfor sunflowers etc.).


Once the principle of outsourcing agricultural advisory services was adopted in 1999,institutional reforms within the Ministry of Agriculture became necessary (PROAGRI I,2003). Examples include:• establishing the authority within the Ministry to outsource services;• establishing a coordination unit for contracting and M&E at national level and

involving supervisory activities at provincial and district levels;• facilitating interaction between key stakeholders through meetings and workshops

organized at both national and provincial levels; and• developing an outsourcing manual and guidelines.

Gradually some of these functions shifted to provincial and district level as a result of theongoing decentralization. Initially even the ministry was not authorized to sign contractswith third parties, let alone provincial and district agricultural authorities. The nationalextension programme (as a contracting institution) is responsible for the supervision,financial management, policy, legislative and institutional arrangements for the smoothimplementation of outsourcing.

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The Provincial Agricultural Departments (DPA) undertake a supervisory and M&E role,and collect useful data to inform the central level on the performance of the ASPs. TheDPA also coordinates interaction between district and provincial level stakeholders. TheDistrict Agricultural Offices are responsible for supervision, information and cooperation,as well as M&E, in coordination with the extension services. The terms of reference(TORs) for the ASPs contracted under the pilot programme included: 1 improving production and productivity of farm operators in the district;2 improving food security and add value to farm produce; 3 ensuring that producers are involved in the decision-making process (planning,

implementation and evaluation of extension services); and 4 encouraging and facilitating the formation of FAs based on common interests.

The contracted ASP was supposed to recruit its own staff to actually carry out theextension services, develop annual work plans and budgets that responded to the TORs,develop a management system and a realistic implementation plan with verifiableindicators, as well as producing and submitting quarterly reports.


Pilot case studies

During the first phase of the Master Extension Plan some pilot projects on outsourcingwere initiated both by MINAG and by the autonomous cash crop institutes. Theministry made an inventory of all the outsourcing of advisory service activitiescoordinated by the public sector. The total contracted amount during a 3-5 year period(2002-2005) was the equivalent of EUR 30.5 million, which included a total of 31 maincontracts; the overall effect in terms of households contacted is indicated in Box 3(Gaspar et al., 2006).

The following sections and boxes, highlight two case studies: 1 the contracted service provision in two districts (Murrupula and Nicoadala); and, 2 the outsourcing programme in the cashew sector (Nampula and Inhambane

provinces).

Procurement

In 1999, MINAG began preparations for a pilot outsourcing activity in two districts to: 1 compare effectiveness and efficiency of public and outsourced extension services; and 2 determine if/when gradually substituting public extension with contracted providers,

the latter would become more efficient and equitable.

The pilot was initiated in 2002 through a short-list tendering process and the NationalAgricultural Extension Programme contracted two service providers7: an NGO and aconsultancy company (see Box 4).


7 INCAJU signed the contracts as the extension department, but even at national level it did nothave the authority to sign contracts with third parties for the use of public funds.

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The Ministry also contracted out other services, though these were more on a thematicbasis (See Box 5). In the end these proved to be easier to manage and to monitor thanoutsourcing a comprehensive programme throughout an entire district, as in the previouscase.

The cashew and cotton institutes (INCAJU and IAM) are not directly involved inextension as they focus on regulation, policy, strategy, coordination, and monitoring andevaluation of developments in their respective sectors. However, the research andextension services in cashew and cotton are fully outsourced (Box 6).

Funding and costing

The National Extension Programme considers outsourcing to be an expensive method ofservice provision but its advantages, as a means of extending coverage or meeting specific

8 Contracting farmer promoters also for input supply (e.g. Newcastle Disease vaccinations andcashew spraying against mildew) involves cash generation that is officially reverting back togovernment coffers, or has a profit-making objective, and as such is not seen as an outsourcingcontract in Mozambique.

Box 4 MINAG’s district extension outsourcing pilot programme

Contracting arrangements between the National Extension Programme, DNEA, and the privatesector operators, both in Nicoadala and Murrupula districts, were concluded in 2002, followinga short-list tendering process. The selection process was based on the quality and cost of theproposals in relation to the TORs and the proposed budgets.

Source: Agricultural Support Programme, 2005.

Box 5 MINAG’s thematic extension outsourcing pilot programme

Pilot experiences include the contracted production of fruit grafts such as citrus, mango andlitchi and coconut seedlings for replanting. The livestock contracts refer to livestock restocking,veterinary services (health checks, dipping services, drug supply) as well as vaccinationcampaigns and the promotion of animal traction. In Tete province, the Provincial AgriculturalDirectorate signed a contract for vaccination services with an association of former extensionworkers. This same association is also involved in a contract to promote smallholder sunflowerproduction. The Nampula Provincial Agricultural Directorate signed a contract for trainingprivate livestock promoters and establishing community pharmacies with another association offormer extension and agricultural officers. In some provinces, extensive programmes onoutsourcing agricultural advisory services programme are managed by the Provincial Directoratesof Agriculture. These programmes mainly focus on developing agro-processing enterprises andinvolve advisory services from private industry and NGOs. District Agricultural Offices havesigned contracts with associations and individual farmer promoters for services such as seed andplanting material multiplication, dip-tank management, the contract spraying of cashew andgroundnuts, and chicken vaccination.8

Source: Agricultural Support Programme, 2005.

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needs without long-term financial commitment, are clear. It is also possible that itseffectiveness justifies the costs if service contracts are properly based on performance,time and costs, and are explicitly targeted.

Outsourcing requires strong M&E evaluation, a capacity presently not available withinthe ministry. According to the TORs for the contracted agencies in the two districts, theASPs were expected to cover some 13,600 farmers out of 107,793 (12.5%) in Nicoadaladistrict, and 12,600 farmers out of 101,745 (22%) in Murrupula district. The total three-year budget of USD 1.9 million for extension services in the two districts was designed topay for 26,200 household contacts per year, or USD 24 per household. Based on thedeveloped plans, funds were disbursed (on a quarterly basis) from the national leveldirectly to the contracted agencies.

Similar arrangements were also made for the outsourced contracts of the cash-cropinstitutes concerned. As yet, no provision has been made for financial disbursementthrough provincial or district authorities. Apart from small in-kind contributions, nospecial arrangements have been developed for co-financing by clients or otherstakeholders. The contracted agencies considered disbursement to be too slow, whichunderlined the importance of the ASPs having some financial capacity in order toguarantee continuity of services.

Implementation

Implementation in Murrupula and Nicoadala districts began in 2002. The contracts forthe ASPs responsible for implementing the district extension services included the need


Box 6 Outsourcing by cash crop institutes

INCAJU and IAM have established contracts with: 1 various NGOs for cashew extension; 2 cotton concession holders on crop diversification in cotton areas; 3 associations and NGOs that focus on agro-processing and animal traction in Inhambane; and 4 NGOs for general agricultural production extension in Zambezia, Niassa and Nampula. Outsourcing contracts started in 2002. Cashew extension in Gaza was contracted out to theAdventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), to private ASPs ‘Kulima’ and ‘Umokazi’in Cabo Delgado and to an NGO consortium in Nampula. The extension service for cropdiversification in cotton-based farming systems was contracted out to various cotton joint-venture companies in Nampula, Cabo Delgado and Zambezia. Ownership of these contracts,including M&E, has been shifted from the institutes concerned to the provincial authorities.A recent internal evaluation of the cashew extension outsourcing programme in Gaza Provincerecommended that the targets to be achieved in the contract needed to be more realistic andbusiness-oriented and that monitoring and partnerships at the district level need to be improved.The role of the cash-crop companies is gradually shifting to one of mere funding. The EuropeanUnion provided financial support for this outsourcing programme, amounting to USD 25million for the 2002-2010 period.

Source: Agricultural Support Programme, 2005; Andre, 2004; and Verde Azul, 2006.

to achieve specific objectives for productivity, food security, participation and socialcapital development (see 2.3). A number of specific activities, along with their respective indicators, were identified forboth districts, in order to meet the objectives specified in the TORs. A planning processalso took place annually, which was submitted to the Provincial Directorate ofAgriculture (DDAs) in each of the provinces involved, as well as to the NationalDirectorate of Extension. In addition to the normal supervision from both the DDAsand the DPAs, a National Coordinator for outsourcing was hired and established at theDNEA; his main duties were to manage and supervise the outsourcing programme.

In 2004, a workshop was organized in Zambezia province to discuss with stakeholdersthe experiences gained during the first year of outsourcing. At this stage there was noclear understanding on the exact meaning of outsourcing by the various state institutions,in this case the DNEA, DPAs and DDAs, and even by the ASPs themselves. Theyidentified a need to improve the targeting mechanisms, priority setting and achieve abetter focus on services provided by ASPs.

A mid-term review was undertaken in 2005 (KPMG, 2005), which was based on log-frame analysis, interviews with MINAG and the use of other relevant documentation,partner consultations and focal group discussions with producer groups. In 2006, a finalevaluation was made of the outsourcing experience in the two districts (Ribeiro et al.,2006). This, together with the mid-term reviews of the cashew outsourcing programmes,provided broader feedback on the performance of the outsourcing experiences: this isdiscussed in the following sections (Verde Azul, 2006; Andre, 2004).

2.5 Performance of outsourcing

Effectiveness and efficiency

The final evaluation of the ministry’s outsourcing experiences concluded that only limitedreal extension results and impacts were achieved by the two three-year contracts in bothdistricts. The main result was enhanced farmer involvement in planning, implementingand monitoring of extension service activities (Ribeiro et al., 2006), although the numberof farmers contacted was smaller than planned. Some minor progress was achieved inincreasing productivity with contacted farmers, as well as with farmers’ own contributionsand in-kind co-financing, although no progress was made in enhancing incomes and foodsecurity. The programme clearly contributed to a major objective of the pilot projects, i.e.to learn lessons on outsourcing advisory services. The main lessons relate to the need for: 1 clear policy development on the purpose of outsourcing; 2 the need to establish selection criteria for contracting ASPs;3 financial control of the ASPs; and 4 related regular financial disbursements, based on monitoring of the performance and

progress of the programme.

The cashew institutes’ outsourcing projects were evaluated according to their relevance,efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, impact and cost-effectiveness (Verde Azul, 2006;Andre, 2004). This evaluation was complicated due to the fact that:

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1 no baseline studies were carried out at the beginning of these outsourcing projects; 2 there was no logical framework providing verifiable indicators; and 3 no framework was set up for monitoring and evaluating these projects.

This evaluation led to a general understanding that the outsourcing programmes carriedout in the cashew sector achieved positive and valuable results. The most notable positiveaspects included: 1 renewal of the cashew plantations in the project area; 2 enhanced chemical treatment of the trees and the training of the ASPs, (both groups

and individual private ASPs); and 3 the opportunity to intensify work on disseminating integrated cashew plantations

management.

The targeted families and producers also support field evidence that the outsourcing hascontributed substantially to improving their living standards. From the beneficiaries’point of view, the strongest results lie in the remarkable increase in the total amount ofcashews marketed, due to improved yields, which resulted from improved chemicalcontrol. There is a strong perception that the current figures on cashew production havebeen improved through outsourcing and are likely to improve even further in the nearfuture, both in quality and quantity, due to the new (more productive) trees distributed,which will start producing crops in a few years. Enhanced family income resulted fromthe outsourced cashew advisory services, which were better focused than the outsourcedgeneral services for the entire district, with the latter not resulting in any increase inincome or food security.

When the pilot projects first started, the sustainability aspects were not properly defined,nor their importance foreseen. At start-up there was no determination as to how eachproject activity should be continued, thus no consideration of the options available(e.g. activities to be continued by farmers’ associations, by the private sector and/or byindividual producers), or the capacities required to make this happen. Thus, theinstitutional sustainability of the programme is at risk as there are, as yet, no capabledevelopment centres available, the links with cashew research are not clear, relations withDistrict Agricultural Offices are poor and the producer groups are not yet strong enough.

There are also some concerns about the technical sustainability of the programme, due tothe fact that planting and spraying remains subsidized. The community nurseries cannotsurvive in a situation where the subsidized grafts are distributed free of charge. Thenumber of ASPs providing spraying services is still insufficient, while there is a poor localmarket in spare parts for spraying equipment. The integrated cashew managementmanual is not yet available. For the beneficiaries this means that the socioeconomicsustainability is not clear: this has consequences for the continuation of the planting,which in turn is essential for the survival of the cashew industry.

The evaluations were problematic due to the project design as there were no ‘SMART’targets9 set for improving processing and marketing. The situation for cashew production


9 Specific, Measurable, Acceptable/Assignable, Realistic, Time-bound.

was better, but insufficient attention was paid to integrated cashew management (pruning,chemical control, cleaning, new plants, grafting, post-harvest management and bush-firecontrol.) No targets were set for developing social, gender or infrastructure aspects or onthe desired levels of farmer satisfaction. The formal evaluations came too late for adjust-ments to be made or for an exit strategy to be developed. Some organizational constraintsalso developed due to discontinuities in senior project staff, the low number of femalestaff and the changes in the contractors’ consortium.

The extension approach used by the contractor led to constraints in relation toparticipation and gender. Female officers clearly had better contact with women, but ingeneral there was poor use of the technology by women farmers. Monitoring wasdeficient due to the absence of a reporting format, while there was also no baselineavailable. There were no supervisory reports or independent monitoring by supervisors orclients. Specific constraints emerged in relation to gender and cashew crops, as well aswith regard to subsidized and non-subsidized inputs for cashew production.

A major achievement of the cashew outsourcing projects has been the chemical controlactivity, although this might require adjustments, such as greater flexibility in terms ofdates for commencing application. The community nurseries only worked well duringthe first year and the nurseries that are currently still in use are actually run under theproject management rather than by the communities. For these and other reasons, theDistrict Offices urgently need capacity strengthening in order to ensure continuity ofthe outsourcing programme.

Outsourcing system performance

The outsourcing concept was not always well understood by all key stakeholders, such asthe government organizations and even the ASPs. The most common misunderstandingwas that outsourcing was confused with full privatization of extension services, giving upthe government’s responsibility for agricultural service provision with basically no role forthe public sector. As a result, supervision and monitoring expected from the governmentat various levels (DNEA, DPAs and DDAs) were not carried out properly. This wasaggravated by the ASPs themselves, which took advantage of the poor understanding bythe public sector of the whole philosophy behind the outsourcing process. The contractedproviders considered themselves to be independent ‘islands’ and did not see the need tointeract with public institutions, further inhibiting the state from performing its role.

Provincial and district governments are expected to concentrate on legislation, lawenforcement, facilitation, regulation and control, setting standards and monitoring andevaluating contracts (see Agricultural Support Programme, 2005). District governmentsneed to carry out these functions in an efficient manner, which was not achieved. Thenational level outsourcing coordinating unit was well-organized and had well-documented experiences but failed to appoint a counterpart at the district level, leavingno possibility to share the accumulated knowledge, experience, and institutional ‘learningby doing’.The contracted ASPs were not required to present an exit strategy or provide hand-overarrangements: these should have been part of the TORs, which should have been

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developed through participatory involvement with all stakeholders. Interaction with otherstakeholders is also required regarding the supply of inputs, credit and information.

Improvements could be made to both the general extension and the cashew supply-chainstrengthening approach. The absence of defined priorities for the various components, aswell as the possibility to review the corresponding targets, led to limited transparency anda lack of demand orientation. It is also essential to have three-monthly meetings todiscuss progress based on a good participatory monitoring system, which can also be usedto place the progress made into a wider context.

The beneficiary targeting mechanisms for the specific objectives and the activities carriedout by the contracted ASPs were strongly guided by the TORs listed in the outsourcingmanual. The existing baseline data could not be linked to the objectives and the expectedresults derived from the use of outsourced services. As a consequence the TORs areunfocused in their targeting and show a rather exhaustive list of activities to be carried out,trying to cover almost everything but with no clear differences between the outsourcedservices and the normal public provision. This contradicts the whole idea and purpose ofoutsourcing, which should be based on comparative advantage and complementarity. Thisalso applies to involving the demand-side in M&E of the activities in order to allow for‘learning by doing’ and institutional corrections. Evaluators were asked to analyse thecost-effectiveness of the outsourcing arrangements but data collection on the costs of theservices provided was not included under the TORs for the ASPs, and was not part of theM&E system. Hence, no real comparison could be made with public extension, either interms of costs or in terms of effectiveness (Verde Azul, 2006).

Overall, in 2006 the National Extension Programme (PRONEA) assisted some 30,559households (or 16% of the total of assisted farmers) through outsourcing, some 10,494of which were via the Murrupula and Nicoadala district contracts. This amounts to 80%,with 42% achievement of the targets set for the respective districts (DNEA, 2007). Thesenumbers lead to an annual outsourced extension cost of USD 60 per household, which isabout three times higher than through direct public agricultural extension. With respectto the cashew contracts, data on the costs of operations was not collected systematically.This was also caused by poor project design and the fact that the cost-indicators were notdefined. No activity budgeting was applied, which made it difficult to compare differentprogrammes in terms of their cost-effectiveness.

Service provider performance

Within the National Extension Programme it was soon recognized that outsourcingextension services, which represented a new approach to providing extension services inMozambique, would require a dataset of relevant current information and indicatorsthrough which its performance could be measured. The measurement of the relativeperformance of outsourcing in the two pilot initiatives would rest on two aspects: 1 an assessment of public sector extension compared to extension outsourced to the

private ASPs; and 2 an assessment of the performance of each of the ASPs involved over the three-year

period of the pilot phase.

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Bearing this in mind, a baseline survey was carried out by the contracted agencies inorder to produce information on the initial situation; this incorporated gender-differentiated socioeconomic and agricultural indicators. The baseline data was organizedinto two main dimensions for each district: household structure and livelihood status.However, all data collection was aimed at measuring impact rather than obtainingfeedback on the performance of the outsourcing system.

More detailed TORs showing the specific process indicators are required for thecontracted ASPs while an M&E system needs to be established before the start of thecontract (Ribeiro et al., 2006). It is also important to involve the district in the designand operation of the M&E system. Although reference is made to the participatorydevelopment of the M&E system no real use has been made of participatory M&E. Forthe cashew supply chain it is argued that the contracts are too short (four years) to showresults. Another element is that ASPs need to make a relatively substantial pre-investment, which turned out to be too high for short-term assignments.

Some of the constraints encountered concern incomplete fiscal decentralization, resultingin logistics problems such as late disbursement of funds and high staff turnover due topoor working conditions. A key issue in relation to this is the use of performance-basedincentives for ASPs, especially in the case of crop sprayers who have to wait for theirmoney until all spraying sessions have been completed. Comparisons between outsourcedextension and public extension were also made difficult due to the differences infinancing arrangements, both in terms of levels and modalities. Comparisons between thecontracted ASPs were constrained by: 1 some ASPs having high salary costs; 2 a lack of unambiguous data on the numbers of farmers with access to extension; 3 the different levels of attendance for the various activities; and4 some ASPs still had funds left over at the end of the assignment, which made it

difficult to calculate cost indicators.

Rough data shows that the costs of cashew extension (including spraying) were USD 21and USD 29 respectively per year per contacted household for the two cashew advisoryservice providers (Verde Azul, 2006; Andre, 2004).

Overall performance summary

The concept of outsourcing has been accepted in Mozambique as part of the newagricultural sector plan, PROAGRI II. Outsourcing advisory services at the district levelis based on considerations such as complementarity and comparative advantage of locallyavailable public and non-public ASPs, based on local demand authenticity. Participatoryplanning and M&E will be enhanced by emphasising the empowerment of FOs (ASP,2005; DNEA, 2007). This scenario is based, to a limited extent, on the lessons learned inthe pilot cases discussed above. Although the experience gained during the various pilotswas useful, extrapolating these experiences to a national programme brings majorchallenges and risks with respect to competencies, capabilities and capacities. The mainrisks concern the capacity development challenges arising from both demand and supplyof advisory services, plus the capacity to facilitate their interaction. The level of resources

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required is immense and the risk of under-investment threatens the viability of a large-scale programme on outsourcing agricultural advisory services, which (despite someearlier ambitions) is not likely to be cheap for the government.

References

Andre, H., 2004. Avaliação de meio-termo. Projecto de desenvolvimento sustentável do caju em Gaza.Distritos do Caju em Gaza. Agencia implementadora: ADRA.

Agricultural Support Program, 2005. Agricultural Support Programme: Volume I: Main Report andAnnexes. Working Paper 1: Community Development and Farmer Empowerment; Working Paper2: Agricultural Development; Working Paper 3: Institutional and Programme Management Issuesand Arrangements; Working Paper 4: Poverty and Development Perspective; Working Paper 5:Programme Costs, Financing and Financial and Economic Analysis. PROAGRI II and IFAD.

Bingen, J., J. Howard, J. Low, and J. Massingue, 2000. The Role of Farmer Associations in Public-PrivatePartnerships to Accelerate Rural Development in Zambezia and Nampula Provinces. Trip report.Maputo. MADER Directorate of Economics, Department of Policy Analysis (MADER/DE/DAP)and Michigan State University.

CTA, 2004. Estratégias e Programas 2005-2009. Junho de 2004. Confederação Das AssociaçõesEconómicas De Moçambique – CTA.

DNEA, 2003. Baseline study for the analysis of public-sector extension and outsource extension in selecteddistricts of Mozambique. Inception report.

DNEA, 2006a. Balanço das actividades realizadas pela extensão durante a campanha 2005-2006. DirecçàoNacional de Extensào Agraria, Namaacha, Outubro de 2006.

DNEA, 2006b. Proceedings of the National Extension Meeting. Namaacha, October 207-2016. In press.DNEA, 2006c. Programa Nacional de Segurança Alimentar, PAN II. Uma contribuição concreta aos

objectivos do milénio. Direccao Nacional de Agricultura, Ministerio da Agricultura.DNEA, 2007. Extension Master Plan 2007-2016. Final Version. Ministry of Agriculture. Maputo May

2007.DNER, 1997. Extension Master Plan. Maputo: National Directorate of Rural Extension, Ministry of

Agriculture and Fisheries, October 1997. DNER, 2004. Extension Master Plan 2005-2009. First draft. Ministério da Agricultura e

Desenvolvimento Rural, National Direction of Rural Extension Maputo. November 2004.Eicher, C.K, 2002a. Mozambique: An Analysis of the Implementation of the Extension Master Plan. Staff

Paper No 2002-31. East Lansing, Michigan: Department of Agricultural Economics, MichiganState University. October 2002.

Eicher, C.K, 2002b. Building African Models of Agricultural Extension: A Case Study of Mozambique.Extension and Rural Development Workshop. Washington DC: World Bank. November 12-152002.

Gaspar, J.A., E. Oliveira, and V. Parkinson, 2006. Innovations in Agricultural Advisory Services inMozambique. Paper presented at the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS)Symposium, September 2006, Entebbe.

Gemo, H., and W. Rivera, 2001. Mozambique’s Move Towards a Pluralistic National System of RuralExtension. Agricultural Research and Extension Network. Network Paper No.10 London, ODI.

Gemo, H.R., 2006. Recursos humanos na Extensão Agraria Publica em Moçambique (1987-2006).Instituto de Investigação Agraria de Moçambique, Direcção Nacional de Extensão Agraria.Ministerio de Agricultura.

Gemo, H., C.K. Eicher, and S. Teclemariam, 2003. Mozambique’s Experience in building a NationalAgricultural Extension System. 1987-2003. Draft.

KPMG, 2005. Relatorio da avaliacao intermedia do programa piloto de outsourcing de extensao rural,Murrupula e Nicoadala. Ministerio da Agricultura. Novembro 2005

MINAGa, 2006. Prioridades de Agricultura. Ministerio de Agricultura. Versão preliminar.


MINAGb, 2006. Plano Economico e Social, PES/2007. Direccao de Economia, Ministerio da Agricultura,Republic de Mocambique, Julho, 2006.

MPD, 2005. National Strategy for Decentralised Planning and Finance 2005-2015 (Programa dePlanificação e Finanças Descentralizadas, PPFD). Ministério do Plano e Desenvolvimento, DirecçãoNacional do Plano e Orçamento. (Draft for Discussion). August 2005.

MPD, 2006. Estrategia de desenvolvimento Rural (EDR). Draft Final. Ministerio da Planificação eDesenvolvimento. Maputo, 28 de Setembro, 2006.

Mucavele, C., and W. Heemskerk, 2006. Outsourcing Agricultural Extension Services in Mozambique.Case study paper. Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.

PROAGRI I, 2003. Manual for outsourcing extension in Mozambique.PROAGRI II. 2004. PROAGRI II: Strategy Document. Maputo: (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural

Development). March 2004.Ribeiro, C.M., N. Givá, M. Botão, R. Pitoro, and F. dos Anjos, 2006. Avaliação Final. Programa Piloto

De ‘Outsourcing’, Em Curso Nos Distritos De Nicoadala E Murrupula. Versão Final. Faculdade DeAgronomia E Engenharia Florestal Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique.

Teclemariam, S., Al. Alage, and J. Eliseu. 2000. The Formation and Role of Extension ManagementCommittees. Maputo. DNER.

Verde Azul Consult Lda., 2006. Programa de prestacao de servicos de apoio e commercializacao do Caju nasProvincias de Cabo delgado e Nampula. Avaliacao de Meio termo, Relatorio Final. Republica deMozambique, Instituto do Fomento do Caju. Volume 2: Anexo 4: Projecto Kulima; Volume 3:Anexo 5: Projecto Umokazi.

Walker, T., R. Pitoro, A. Tomo, I. Sitoe, C. Salência, R. Mahanzule, C. Donovan, and F. Mazuze, 2006.Priority Setting for Public-Sector Agricultural Research in Mozambique with the National AgriculturalSurvey Data. Research Report Series No. 3E. August, 2006. Directorate of Training,Documentation, and Technology Transfer, Institute of Agricultural Research of Mozambique,IIAM.

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3 Outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services in Tanzania Peniel Mwasha and Willem Heemskerk

3.1 Context

Background

More than 85% of Tanzanians live in rural areas, with an average farm size of about 2 haper household; a total of 14 million ha is under cultivation by small-scale farmers. Thegovernment recognizes agriculture as the principle productive activity and the mainsignificant income-generating pursuit of the rural population, and hence its importancefor rural poverty reduction (URT, 2004b).

The recognition of the importance of agriculture in the liberalized and commercializedcontext has led to a new vision for agricultural service provision. This new vision ischaracterized by: 1 change in public sector ethos; 2 joint resource allocation and management; 3 enhanced mechanisms of service provision; 4 farmer and group influence over priorities (and eventually jurisdiction over

expenditure of funds for agricultural development); 5 rationalization and streamlining of the public sector; and6 enhancement of the role played by the private and ‘third’ sector, i.e. non-government

organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) in supportingservice provision and input supply functions.

As a consequence, the traditional view of agricultural research and extension as beingmainly a government responsibility is changing rapidly. Government policy is now gearedtowards improving the agricultural productivity of small-scale farmers throughdecentralization and empowerment of grassroots communities, as well as by involving allkey stakeholders in enhanced service provision. One important mechanism envisaged toachieve this is the outsourcing of agricultural advisory services, thus contributing todemand-driven service provision on the basis of comparative advantage. The concept wastested in a number of pilot initiatives implemented as the ‘Pilot Initiatives Programme’(PIP) under Phase II of the National Agricultural Extension Programme (NAEP II)during the period between 2000 and 2004 (MAC, 1999a and 1999b, Mwasha, 2002).

Outsourcing agricultural advisory services in Tanzania

Pilot Initiatives Programme

Based on lessons learned during the first phase of the National Extension Programme(NALERP 1989-1996) a need was identified for more participatory and demand-drivenextension approaches (MAC, 1999a). Involving other stakeholders, outsourcing wasenvisaged as a potential solution and was subsequently piloted in NAEP II. The majorobjective of NAEP II was to continue to improve extension provision services to small-scale farmers and pastoralists in order to increase productivity and household income andto improve extension sustainability, relevance and cost-effectiveness.

NAEP’s most important focus was to promote participatory approaches that gave farmersan effective voice and role in determining the services that they needed. Emphasis wasgiven to working with farmers’ groups (FGs) rather than with individual farmers. NAEPII initiated the involvement of the private sector and NGOs in providing extensionservices and introduced the concept of cost-sharing by the beneficiaries. The PIPcomponent of the NAEP II was to widen the existing knowledge system and to bring inother experiences and approaches by outsourcing agricultural services to non-publicagricultural service providers (ASPs).

The PIP established a basis for building future extension programmes, and was purposelydesigned to address difficult issues that were expected to be encountered during theimplementation of NAEP II, such as: 1 access to basic inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides, feeds, seeds, etc.; 2 access to, and availability of, agricultural credit; 3 limited farmer empowerment; 4 low working morale among the front-line extension staff; 5 non-professionalism of extension workers; and, 6 poor links between research, extension and farmers.

The PIP addressed services in a wider context than just extension, hence the reference toadvisory services.

Specific objectives were set for the PIP in Tanzania to address the aforementioned issues,i.e. to: 1 improve extension management by using different models and approaches other than

the more traditional (although modified) T&V system, in order to become moreeffective and efficient;

2 reduce government spending on service provision and promote institutional andfinancial sustainability, leading to greater efficiency;

3 use the complementarity of private and third-sector services to public extension, basedon competitive advantage;

4 improve responsiveness and accountability of the service providers, both upward anddownward (see also Box 7).

The PIP ended a few years ago but was only partly evaluated (Friis-Hansen, 2004). Theexperiences gained under the PIP are now being used in the new Agricultural SectorDevelopment Programme (ASDP), which began in 2006. ASDP focuses mainly on

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agricultural development, from the district level down to villages and household levels(URT, 2004a, 2004b). Although outsourcing is now becoming a main component ofASDP, this scaling up appears to be based more on the experiences gained in Ugandathrough the NAADS programme (see Uganda case study) than on the lessons learnedfrom the PIP in Tanzania. The rationale for this study is to extract additional lessonsfrom the initial outsourcing experiences for further use in ASDP.



In 1997 the Government of Tanzania (GoT) introduced various reforms, one of whichwas the Local Government Reform Programme (Local Government Act No. 19 of 1997and No. 6 of 1999) whereby the LGAs were given autonomy to perform functions, toacquire ownership and empowerment, in order to achieve sustainability in the localdevelopmental work. An important aspect of the Local Government Reform Programmewas that District Councils were encouraged to address five main aspects: 1 relevance of services to clients; 2 ownership of the services provided by District Councils; 3 accountability of ASPs to their clients; 4 cost-effectiveness of the services; and 5 institutional and financial sustainability of the services provided.

The 1997 Tanzanian National Agricultural Policy (URT, 2004a) identified the need fora different approach to extension, which would complement the trends toward openmarkets and privatization by encouraging participation by the private sector, as well asinvolving farmers in the planning of the extension system.

Under the Regional Administration Act (1997) the responsibility for implementingextension services was assigned to the District Councils. As a result of this reform, thenational extension service was deconcentrated in 2004, and from that moment onwardsdistrict extension services responded to the District Executive Director (through the

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Box 7 NAEP II Pilot Initiatives Programme

The main ideas pursued by the PIP outsourcing programme:º Work towards a more pluralistic and less public sector-dominated Extension Service Provider

System with roles for NGOs, Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and CBOs, privatecompanies and farmer extension workers or farmer motivators.

º More effective technology dissemination modes through enhanced interaction betweenresearch, extension and farmers.

º Improved Extension Management: from ‘Training and Visit’ (T&V) to a more pluralisticapproach.

º Promotion of FOs, including Savings & Credit Societies (SACCOS).º Establish strong links between stockists, farmers and LGAs through innovative schemes.

Source: MAC, 1999a.

District Agricultural Officer) and budgets for extension became part of the districtbudget, although earmarked for agriculture.

A new model of extension management was developed at the district level, which wasdemand-driven, sustainable and targeted towards specific categories of farmers. Thesystem has the following characteristics: community-based; farmer empowerment; whole-farm approach; demand-driven extension process; services based on farmers’ needs andinterests; as well as being relevant, cost-effective, accountable; and, financially,operationally and institutionally sustainable (MAC, 1999a and 1999b).

The national agricultural policies of 1997 identified the need to involve districts, theprivate sector and farmers more closely in extension management and priority setting,while the role (at the central level) focused on regulation, M&E and policy. As a result,extension services are increasingly managed under full responsibility of the districts,which are accountable to their constituents, who are mostly farmers. Communities paydirectly (livestock and other taxes) or indirectly (cotton and other cash-crop levies) forthe extension services provided by the district. Based on these resources districts can basetheir advisory service programme on contracting the best available services for the job.Other stakeholders (such as NGOs, CBOs, private companies, universities, cooperativesand individual academics) involved in agricultural advisory and capacity developmentservices have also appeared on the scene; these are registered either under the CooperativeSocieties Act of 1992, the Trustees Incorporation Act (Cap.318), the BusinessRegistration Ordinance (Cap. 213) Cooperative Act (on farmer’ organizations), the NGOAct or the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 212) (Isinika, 2003).

In 2000, Tanzania developed a vision statement and strategy for agricultural extension forthe year 2010 (Rutatora, 2000), which reads as follows:

«The agricultural extension services in Tanzania should, by the year 2010, be participatory,demand-driven, carefully targeted, cost-effective, gender-sensitive and provided in acollaborative and co-coordinated way involving various stakeholders, including thebeneficiaries so as to enable the farming and pastoral communities to utilize available resourcesin an effective and sustainable manner in order to improve their incomes and overall standardof living»

The vision mentions two aspects that are specifically important to this case study:involving various stakeholders and cost-effectiveness. The rationale for outsourcingadvisory services is derived from this part of the vision. The entire concept of contractingout advisory services is to relieve the government from the direct responsibility ofimplementing these services so that it can concentrate on policy and regulatory issues.This strategy also aims to: 1 shift from public to private provision of information and knowledge; 2 empower farmers to access privately provided extension services, research technologies

and market information; 3 develop private local ASP capacity to cater for the expected changes; 4 promote market-oriented farming;

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5 spell out alternative mechanisms for funding research and extension services; and 6 outsource services to other providers.

The ASDP (URT, 2004b) focuses on the development of research and advisory servicesover the next 15 years. The programme will be implemented by LGAs, with research andadvisory services being outsourced to private ASPs on a competitive basis.


The main goal of the advisory service system reforms (including outsourcing) is to havea greater share of the service provision carried out by the private sector. However, thisreform is expected to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary (Rutatora, 2000; URT,2004a). One important element is the integration of different service provider systems atthe local level. The merging of agricultural extension services at the district level throughthe District Agricultural Office (DAO) and down to the ward and village levels isconsidered inevitable because demand is also integrated, as most beneficiary farmerspossess both livestock and crops and manage their natural resources. The DistrictAgricultural Office also acts as a facilitator and liaison office for other, and morespecialized, functions (e.g. veterinary services) as well as for other GoT ministries (e.g.Ministry of Trade, Industry and Marketing). A high degree of collaboration is requiredbetween the various ministries represented at the district level in order to make the overallagricultural programme feasible, hence the key role of the DAO (Mwasha, 2000).

The central government has retained the overall responsibility for establishing criteriaconcerning the use of extension funds, standards for service provision (quality control)and M&E. The decentralization of governance and the deconcentration of extensionservice provision have also allowed for a stronger involvement of FGs and FOs at thelocal level (URT, 2004b). Farmer empowerment is seen as an essential element in theintroduction of outsourcing in order to set relevant priorities and allow downwardaccountability of the various ASPs (URT, 2004a).


The key stakeholders in outsourcing are LGAs, public (district extension) and privateASPs, and FOs. A balanced capacity among these stakeholders is essential for the overalleffectiveness of the extension mechanisms. The PIP and the new ASDP emphasizestrengthening the capacity of the stakeholder groups, largely through learning-by-doing.The PIP focused on the role of farmers in contracts for experimenting with FFSs andtraining farmer-to-farmer motivators.

Under the ASDP, capacity strengthening activities for ASPs include managinginformation, acquisition and supply, providing training, and technical services. To enablethe private sector to carry out these functions the programme supports: publicity andawareness-building of ASDP opportunities and modalities; the provision and orientationof demand-led training; availability of professional, technical and business advice;providing incentives for staff retrenchment and/or secondment; plus the promotion of aprofessional association of competent ASPs. It is also important to establish a facility for


providing financial assistance through loans, matching grants or leasing, and hiringarrangements for small business establishment and development in the area of advisoryservices. This will involve: 1 establishing a district block grant system for demand-driven extension activities; 2 generating and adapting relevant technologies and knowledge; 3 demand-driven extension, marketing, information and communication facilities; and 4 increased private sector agricultural provision (URT, 2004a; URT, 2006).

The core district agricultural team plays a key role in training, facilitating and supportingFG formation, farmer networking and assisting groups and Farmer Fora (FF). TheMinistry of Education has been entrusted with imparting knowledge to students, fromprimary school level to higher learning students. However, each ministry has its ownsystem of training its staff in the relevant fields so that they can offer services to thepublic. The Ministry of Water and Livestock Development (MWLD) has its ownTraining Institutes to address advanced training in livestock production and educatestudents in order for them to provide advisory services to farmers, both in a public orprivate sector setting.


Demand

The farmer is the main stakeholder in agricultural development and is therefore chargedwith establishing priorities for agricultural advisory services under outsourcing arrange-ments. Agricultural advisory service policies (MAC, 1999a; Rutatora, 2000; ASDP,2004a) emphasize the need to involve FOs in planning agricultural extension and todirectly influence extension by involving district governments in advisory serviceprovision. FGs and community groups play an important role in establishing prioritiesand extension demand at the local level. However, these groups are not (or only loosely)connected to social capital (see also glossary) at other levels (Heemskerk et al., 2004). Theultimate goal is to empower farmers and ensure that they are represented at the ward (FF)and district (council) level and, as a result, ensure that their interests are well safeguarded.The number of Farmer Fora (i.e. FF at the village and ward levels) is currently limited.ASDP envisages making an inventory of the existing fora and making a deliberate effortto encourage farmers to form more of these groups.

As there was little experience with farmer empowerment in the public sector, some ofthese projects were contracted out as pilots under the NAEP II PIP scheme. Many NGOshave worked towards forming FOs to empower farmers. In addition, major ongoingnational projects with governmental, bilateral and multilateral support, are all workingtowards farmer empowerment. Under the ASDP, ASPs will be contracted to offerknowledge support to FOs and networks. Although FGs are increasingly involved inpriority setting for advisory services, as well as in the implementation thereof, there islittle experience in contracting farmers. In practice many local FOs and networks, suchas ‘MVIWAMO’ (Monduli Network of the National Farmers’ Network known asMVIWATA) are involved in contracting public extension workers, because in manyinstances such extension staff exist but often lack the funds to operate extension

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programmes. Many FOs have acquired resources to provide services but have not yetacquired adequate capacity to actually implement this service provision themselves(Wennink et al., 2006).


The overall GoT objective for agricultural extension is to reach the majority of the ruralcommunities and support their objectives to increase productivity and profitability, thusincreasing food security and eradicating poverty. In order to achieve these broadobjectives, the government has to allow various stakeholders to provide extension servicesand work increasingly closely with FGs. The intention is to outsource (part of ) theresearch and advisory services to non-public providers in order to concentrate thegovernment’s efforts on policy making, quality control of services, as well as strategicfunding of essential services (URT, 2004a).

The traditional top-down transfer of information and technology that was exemplified bythe former ‘Training and Visit’ (T&V) system is gradually, but steadily, being replaced bya much more participatory approach based on farmer empowerment and learningprinciples (URT, 2004b). In order to be efficient and effective, a more pluralisticextension approach involving different stakeholders will require a high degree ofcoordination and linkage between the ASPs and government, and among the ASPs


10 Note that there are 20 regions and at least 114 rural districts.

Box 8 The pluralistic agricultural advisory service system in Tanzania

Analysis of Tanzania’s agricultural advisory services showed that 51% concerns public goods,41% concerns private goods and the rest is in a mixed public-private domain (such as projectsand programmes, including outsourcing). Of these services, 19% were provided at the regionallevel, 41% at district level, 18% at ward level, and the rest (22%) at the village level. Mostparastatals did not provide services below district level, while NGOs and CBOs had asubstantive presence at ward and village levels.In 2003 the full cadre of the public extension programme consisted of 1,110 district subjectmatter specialists (SMSs) and 4,725 ward and village level extension officers. These extensionofficers covered 114 districts, 10,470 villages and around 9.4 million farmers. The averageoverall farmer to public extension worker to ratio is 1970. This is approximately one field officerfor every two villages, and an average of ten staff per district. Extension officers are generallyadequately trained to diploma or certificate level, while district supervisors are expected to have aBSc.Information from 17 regions and 41 districts identified a total of 290 private or semi-privateASPs of various kinds. The classification was as follows: 39% NGOs and CBOs, 31%agribusiness companies, 18% government and parastatals, and 12% donor-supported projects(Isinika, 2003). This amounts to at least ten non-public service providers per region but,through extrapolation from the 41 districts to the entire country, could equally lead to triple thatamount10. The total number of staff involved in non-public service provision could surpass thetotal number of public extension officers.

Sources: URT, 2004a; Isinika, 2003; Mlozi, 2000; Mlozi and Mvena, 2000.

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themselves. The NAEP II PIP scheme further contributed to the development ofalternative approaches by contracting selected NGOs for scaling-up some of theexperiences. During the last few decades, the extension system in Tanzania has thereforebeen moving away from the diffusion model to the T&V approach, towards a systembased on participatory approaches (Isinika, 2000).

Historically the Tanzania Advisory Service System has been solemnly public, with a verysmall private sector working beside some NGOs, church-based organizations etc. One ofthe reasons for carrying out the pilot initiatives was to test and compare the effectivenessof contracting out some of the services such as extension or research to other ASPs.Several non-public providers have been providing advisory services using their ownfunding, and the public sector can use such experiences from NGOs, CBOs and evenindividual companies and input retail shops and scale-up such services.

Some public sector outsourcing initiatives, other than PIP, have been supported bybilateral and multilateral donors, and by international NGOs such as HeiferInternational, CARE International, World Vision, PLAN International, etc. FOs, suchas MViWATA, as well as commodity FOs, such as KILICAFE (association of specialitycoffee growers), are also increasingly involved in agricultural advisory services, which arefinanced by national and international public funds (Wennink et al., 2006; URT, 2004b).

ASDP has accelerated the adoption of the value chain and the livelihood systemsapproaches in extension, the decentralization of extension services to the district level andthe introduction of a demand-driven pluralist agricultural advisory services system.Although the government has decided that the private sector will be allowed to provideagricultural services, the challenge to develop private sector capacity and to recruit localservice providers is enormous. The private sector has comparative advantages over thepublic sector, such as its emphasis on cost-effectiveness and market orientation. ASDPnow uses lessons from the PIP and other sources on the potential roles of the privatesector (that have proven to be more effective in service provision), provided that they arewell-guided, regulated, controlled and adequately funded with public funds (URT 2004a).


The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MAC) performs policy and regulatoryfunctions, while the Prime Minister’s Office for Regional and Local Government isresponsible (through the Local Councils) for managing and coordinating advisory servicesto the farm level. The main task of central agricultural ministries is one of: • building the capacity of LGAs; • improving the capacity of ASPs; • setting standards for services delivered; • M&E of services; and • backstopping to the LGAs.

All districts have developed a District Development Plan (DDP) that embraces all sectorssuch as education, health, roads and agriculture. Under the ASDP, which started in 2006,districts also prepare District Agricultural Development Programmes (DADPs) that are

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funded through the earmarked agricultural basket fund of the National Treasury underASDP. The DADPs form the basis for the District Agricultural Advisory ServicesProgramme, which is participatory, client-oriented, farmer-owned, cost-effective and aimsat empowering farmers. Farmers therefore play a pivotal role in the programme.Extension services have to give farmers a voice and in order for their voice to be heardand become effective, the formation of farmers’ associations, cooperatives and apexorganizations or confederations is vital. FGs or associations establish their needs andgroups are accountable to their members, while extension workers are answerable to theFGs. In the long run the FGs should be able to decide on the financial incentives andsalary of the extension agent based on his/her performance, as is already the case withmarket and input supply services.

For many years, Public Zonal Agricultural Research Institutes (ZARIs) in Tanzania havebeen the main sources of technology identification and development, while the publicextension service has been acting as an important vehicle to transfer the developedtechnology to the clientele and, at the same time, give feedback to the researchers so thatthe latter can make the necessary improvements to the technology. A more demand-driven approach to public agricultural research based on the principles of the Client-Oriented Research and Development Management Approach (CORDEMA) is expectedto contribute to the enhanced roles played by a variety of ASPs in contributing to therelevance of the AIS (URT, 2004a and 2004b).

3.4 Outsourcing functions under the PIP

Procurement

After creating stakeholder awareness through zonal multi-stakeholder seminars on thePIP, a formal announcement (a ‘Call for Proposals’) was made to interested parties suchas NGOs, LGAs, CBOs, and individual ASPs. Three main categories of potential projectswere identified in the call for proposals:1 extension management: involving other providers of extension services and

incorporating new approaches and new ideas;2 establishment of a joint input guarantee scheme; and, 3 support to FGs through proposals for income-generating projects, identified through

Participatory Rural Assessments (PRAs).

Most of the groups that submitted proposals were LGAs. The screening of these proposalstook place at ministerial level through a ‘Technical Committee’ for the PIP. Its mainfunction was to screen proposals on the basis of the following established criteria: 1 originating from the grassroots community; 2 designed by a team of District SMSs in collaboration with FGs in a participatory

manner and following given guidelines; 3 passing through the District Extension Steering Committee; 4 of socioeconomic importance and relevance; 5 jointly evaluated by stakeholders at the final stage of the proposal;6 gender-balanced and environmentally sound; and 7 including a sustainable exit strategy.


In the first category, five projects were eventually identified in a relatively top-downmanner with approved contracts for: 1 training of farmer motivators at the Mogabiri Farm Extension Centre; 2 training of farmer motivators with ‘Public Healthcare Ambassadors’;3 FFFs with FAO; 4 modified extension services in pastoral and staff-deficit areas with Monduli DC; and 5 extension in drought-prone areas with the same DC.

In the second category a contract was established with Sasakawa Global 200011. In thethird category, the call for proposals resulted in 91 proposals (58 DCs and 33 otherscomprising NGOs, CBO, and the private sector), of which 43 were eventually approvedand contracts were signed with DCs (bipartite contracts) or with DCs and an NGO/CBO/other private sector sub-contractor (tripartite contracts). The 43 pilot initiativeswere launched during NAEP II. In order for the selected PIP pilots to be implemented,a funding mechanism was instituted and a legal officer engaged to prepare the legaldocuments to be used as a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for allstakeholders. There were two types of MoUs or Agreements signed:1 Tripartite Agreement involving three parties, mainly the Ministry of Livestock

Development, LGAs and NGOs/private sector. 2 Dual Agreement involving only two parties, mainly the Ministry and LGAs.

Guidelines for private ASPs to be selected for contracted service provision have beendeveloped under the ASDP. ASPs selected need to have good track records of providingsimilar services covering a period of no less than three years (Isinika, 2003). Thoseproviding extension services need to be evaluated at least once every two years. Guidelineson minimum qualifications for ASPs to undertake extension and associated activities arebeing developed, as well as regulations and standards for quality control. Existingoutsourcing systems for agricultural services are also being evaluated, and guidelines anddocuments are being developed for use by the districts (URT, 2004a). Under ASDP, themost important activity is to make an inventory of all the ASPs in every district, assesstheir capability to provide the required services and determine their legal status (whetherthey are registered on not). Then these ASPs will be categorized according to theirpotential to handle short-term or long-term agricultural services. The ASP register will bemaintained in each district and region and at national level in order to facilitate the taskof outsourcing agricultural services more effectively (URT, 2004a, 2004b).

Funding and costing

The pilot projects for the third PIP category (strengthening FGs and income-generatingactivities) were identified through a PRA. An approved pilot initiative was sometimestried at more than one location within the district. The maximum total project cost persite was USD 100,000. In cases where one pilot could cover two to three districts in theregion the funding ceiling was increased to USD 200,000. Most of the pilot initiativescost around USD 15,000 and were implemented over a period of one to two years.

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11 International Non-Governmental Organization that supports external input-based agriculturalextension.

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After approving the proposals at the district level, the District Extension SteeringCommittee (DESC12) of the DAO, would normally approve the disbursement of thefunds in two equal instalments: at the beginning and towards the final third of the pilotinitiative period. All the PIP projects were expected to take a close look at bothaccountability and cost-sharing mechanisms in order to make the initiative sustainable.Of the 43 pilot initiatives the one on FFSs vividly portrayed these two parameters.Through participatory M&E at intermediate stages and at the end of the FFSs, thegroups conducted a marginal cost analysis of all activities. Setting up one FFS costaround USD 400, and the farmers’ contribution in the form of cash or kind (mainlythrough labour) was around USD 200, making the total cost for a pilot project aroundUSD 600. The sales from the harvest were used to open a bank account for the groupinvolved. Based on this, a SACCO was initiated and contributed to the sustainability ofthe association. Contracting-out in this way, with clear financial cost-sharing targets,contributed to the sustainability of the activity.

Implementation

The M&E component of the PIP was a vitally important element of NAEP II becausethe results and the lessons learned formed the bedrock for the future outlook of extensionservices in Tanzania. To make the evaluation effective, players at different levels wereassigned well-defined roles. At the national level, the M&E unit was given theresponsibility of monitoring all the pilot projects in the country. To do so, the unitdesigned a specific format for evaluating pilot initiatives at different levels. All thetechnical officers involved in backstopping the district activities used a questionnaire tohelp them properly monitor the progress of the pilots. The district staff used the samequestionnaire. However, at the beneficiary level the evaluation was planned to beparticipatory and it was the role of village extension officers to carry out such evaluationsby filling out specific forms, which in turn would be used to measure the results of thepilot projects in terms of efficiency, cost–effectiveness, ownership, communityempowerment and sustainability.

However, despite all the preparation and organization for carrying out an effective M&Eof the PIP projects, only three pilots on farmer empowerment were effectively evaluatedindividually, namely: 1 Training of Farmer Motivators by Mogabiri Farmers Education Centre; 2 Hai Community-Based Extension Service; and 3 FFSs, as an alternative method for extension service provision.

Some outsourced programmes were also evaluated as part of an overall evaluation, suchas: 1 Community-Based Agriculture Extension and Food Security in Drought-Prone Areas

of Same District; and 2 Community-Based Extension Service for Pastoralists in Monduli District.


12 A multi-stakeholder extension advisory committee at district level.

The evaluations focused on the results of the pilots as perceived by the client farmers,with little emphasis on the outsourcing process. The conclusions mainly related to thepositive experiences with learning about new approaches through outsourcing. Pilotprojects that focused on establishing farmer-owned SACCOS were considered to be ofparticular help to farmers in solving the problem of credit availability, marketing andagricultural input supply. After their evaluation, the initiatives that responded positivelyto the original objectives were scaled up in various locations around the country. Many ofthe lessons learned under the NAEP II PIP form the ‘cornerstone’ of the extension serviceprovision system recommendations under the newly launched ASDP (see Section 3.5).

3.5 Performance of outsourcing pilot projects

Approach

The effectiveness and efficiency of the PIP-supported projects was analysed by comparingthe results with the four main PIP objectives concerning: 1 improved management of a public and pluralistic advisory services system at the

district level; 2 reduced spending and enhanced sustainability through improved efficiency;3 enhanced effectiveness through complementarity of the public and private sector, and

the introduction of new approaches and ways of working; and 4 strengthened demand-driven responses and accountability.

The following sections discuss these main elements of the new extension programmebeing developed in Tanzania under ASDP and based on the lessons learned from the PIP.

Effectiveness/efficiency

The main reason for carrying out the PIP, and especially the outsourcing of services, wasto bring in new approaches and stakeholders, and find out ways and means to makeadvisory service provision more cost-effective. In this context it was anticipated that thecosts of providing services (and their effectiveness through full decentralization to thedistrict level), based on downward-accountability of service providers to clients, as well asthe use of private ASPs, would be less than the costs of providing public services underdeconcentration. This was a major consideration for local government reform and for theshift to full decentralization. The actual transaction costs of outsourcing the services atthe LGA level were also supposed to be more cost-effective than when conducted at thenational level. The PIP aimed to address issues around this cost element, but uniformdata collection was not well planned at the national level and consequently no cost-benefit analysis can be made for the various PIP projects. The actual costs of a publicextension officer are lower than when involving an extension officer through contractinga private ASP, but a performance comparison could not be made.

Suggestions for direct contracting of extension officers on performance-based short-termcontracts have been made in the context of the PIP evaluations (Friis-Hansen, 2004). Theresult can be high extension area coverage on the basis of a low-input/low-outputscenario. Gradually though, as groups of farmers become empowered they are expected to

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engage the ASPs on a contractual basis, increasing their own contribution, leaving thepublic sector with less financial responsibility for the provided services, while alsogenerating further savings by spreading out the costs for retrenchment over a longerperiod. However, no quantitative data was available from the pilot projects in order tosupport the rationale for some of these expectations. Greater effectiveness has generallybeen achieved by pursuing complementary elements between the private sector and thepublic sector, resulting in some improvement in the quality and relevance of serviceprovision. A good example is the improvement of dairy development programmes inmany parts of Tanzania, where NGOs (such as Heifer International) have been workingwith the government in a successful complementary manner.

In all successful cases the type of extension services offered by NGOs had a value chainfocus and did not concentrate on the more general and less-focused household foodsecurity issues, which the public extension service mostly addresses. Other functions thatcan best be carried out by the public sector include that of mass campaigns, sensitizingcommunities to certain initiatives, setting by-laws and M&E functions.

The public outsourcing of private service provision has apparent advantages over publicservice provision. Outsourcing: 1 is more efficient in serving clients, specifically defines responsibilities and encourages

clarity in objectives and outputs; 2 is flexible and facilitates extension reforms through innovative approaches; and 3 enables exploration of the advantages possessed by the various ASPs.

Contracting also frequently ensures that the service procured is of high quality since itoperates according to set standards. Some private providers of agricultural inputs such asseeds, fertilizer, credit and veterinary drugs automatically offer advisory services in theprocess of promoting their products. The other side of the coin is that public service alsohas some advantages over contracting, especially when it comes to the issue of ruraloutreach and assisting the most vulnerable. The Tanzanian public extension service waseffective in organizing and managing extension at the village level, which is a strong pointthat can be improved during ASDP. Furthermore, most private ASPs are not ready towork in remote areas of the country, where roads are poor and extension operations aredifficult. The public sector already has its extension staff in such areas, and they haveadapted to the special working environment. The M&E of the service provision based oncontracts, regulations and standards is best conducted by the public sector, while theactual performance of the ASPs is best monitored by the clients.

Outsourcing system performance

Capacity development of the local government staff is the greatest challenge concerningthe management of the advisory service system facing the Central Government under theLocal Government Reform Programme. Handling a pluralistic extension system at thedistrict level requires a substantial amount of capacity development at the DAOs. Firstly,there is an urgent need to conduct a Training Needs Assessment (TNA) in order toestablish the kinds of training that will be required by the district team. One obvioustype of capacity development needed by this core team concerns training the local ASPs


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to participate in the outsourcing system and, secondly, the handling by the district staffof the more experienced national and international ASPs.

Different districts have different extension approaches, depending on the type ofdominant enterprises, location, time-specific needs, cost-effectiveness, and the nature ofthe clients and other stakeholders. A uniform approach cannot work for all districts andcannot be expected to lead to similar results. The impact of service provision will verymuch depend on how well the selected extension approach fits the requirements of thedistrict. The concept of having many ASPs involved in the same district has someadvantages, but one should not lose sight of the fact that, under such circumstances,competition between ASPs will be inevitable. As a result, the interactive learningopportunities between ASPs might not be effectively used, since some providers willprobably conceal useful information and working methods that otherwise might havebeen shared between stakeholders. These and other aspects need to be critically observedand evaluated during further scaling up of the pilot initiatives (Friis-Hansen, 2004; URT,2004a; MAFS 2003, EZCORE, 2003).

Service provider performance

Under a pluralistic service provision system based on farmers’ demands, the performanceof these ASPs can best be monitored by the farmers themselves. The signing of contractsfor specific activities between an NGO, the District Council and the central Ministrywill enhance upward accountability, but has not yet addressed downward accountability(Friis-Hansen, 2004). Empowered FOs are at the centre of this process, and theirdecisions will ‘steer the entire ship’.

One of the tasks at the central level is to design contract formats for service provision thatwill legally bind the public or non-public ASPs and FGs. NGOs, CBOs or other ASPsmust sign such a contract with FGs, and any breach of contract by either party will behandled through arbitration or through legal means. Therefore, accountability at LGAlevel or with regard to village-level and ward governments (i.e. Local Level Governmentor LLG) will be handled accordingly. In Tanzania, the question of downwardaccountability was put into a proper context in 1982 under the ‘Ujamaa policy’, whenthe Village Government Act was passed. Under this Act the village governments weregiven autonomy and could make the LGA answerable and accountable when such needarose. By the same token, LLGs that contain FGs or FFs can hold any NGO or privateASP accountable for performance. The LGAs and LLGs work by complementing eachother and operating in synergy. However, where issues of irresponsibility are concerned,the code of conduct clearly outlines the implications of the law. ASDP will once againbuild on the village government structure.

Concluding remarks

The outsourcing programme under the NAEP II PIP has greatly contributed to bringingin new experiences from NGOs and the private sector into the national advisory servicessystem. The programme also provided input into the capacity strengthening of districts,as at least one district in every region was involved in handling a contract. ASDP, which

started in 2006, will greatly benefit from these experiences. Some of these relate to therole of FGs in demand authenticity and downward accountability, outsourcing as a toolto bring in new ideas and experiences, and the need to duly invest in the most effectivemethod of service provision, rather than just looking for cost-reductions. However, theASDP programme design could have benefited to a greater extent if the PIP had beenbetter designed, thus also allowing for learning from the outsourcing experiences, byincluding more effective evaluation methods.

References

EZCORE, 2003. Annual Workplan and Budget 2003. Strategic Review EZCORE Phase II, 2005 FinalReport.

Friis-Hansen, E., 2004. Concepts And Experiences With Demand-Driven Advisory Services; Review OfRecent Literature With Examples From Tanzania. Danish Institute For International Studies. DIISWorking Paper no 2004/7. www.diis.dk

Heemskerk, W., and B. Wennink. 2004. Building social capital for agricultural innovation. Experienceswith farmer groups in Sub-Saharn Africa. Bulletin 368. KIT Publishers, Amsterdam.

Isinika, A.C., 2000. Mechanisms for contracting extension services. A paper presented at the workshop onagricultural extension reform, held at Impala Hotel, Arusha, 23-24th November, 2000.

Isinika, A.C., 2003. Privatization and demand-driven agricultural extension services. October 2003, Draft.Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

MAC, 1999a. Preparation of Pilot Micro projects in NAEP II (1996-2001). March 1999. Ministry ofAgriculture and Cooperatives.

MAC, 1999b. Terms of Reference for the preparation of the district level sustainable extension managementdemand-driven or demand-based extension service model in Kongwa District. Ministry of Agricultureand Cooperatives.

MAFS, 2003. Privatization and demand-driven agricultural extension services. October 2003, Draft.Mlozi, M.R.S., 2000. Factors inhibiting the privatization of agricultural extension services in Tanzania.

In: Mlozi and Mvena, 2000. Mlozi, M.R.S., and Z.S.K. Mvena (eds.), 2000. Reform of agricultural extension services in Tanzania:

Issues and Challenges for the New Millennium. Papers presented at the 16th TSAEE Conference,2000. Tanzania Society of Agricultural Education and Extension (TSAEE).

Mwasha, P., and W. Heemskerk, 2006. Tanzanian Experience with Outsourcing Extension Services: ThePilot Initiatives Programme. Case study paper, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.

Mwasha, P.S., 2002. The role of the Agricultural Lead Ministries in Extension Service Delivery underDecentralization by Devolution.

Rutatora, D.F., 2000. Agricultural extension reform in Tanzania: A vision and strategy Outline to year2010. In: Mlozi and Mvena, 2000.

URT, 2004a. Volume I: Main report, Mainland; Volume II: Zanzibar Appraisal Report; Volume III: CoreProgramme Document. Final Draft.

URT, 2004b. Agricultural Sector Development Programme. Agricultural Services Support Programme.Programme Document and IFAD Appraisal report. Working Paper on Farmer Empowerment.

URT, 2006. Programme Implementation Plan. Support through Basket Fund; Local and National levels.Agricultural Sector Development Programme. Draft 19 June 2006.

Wennink, B., and W. Heemskerk (eds.), 2006. Farmers’ organizations and agricultural innovation. Casestudies from Benin, Rwanda and Tanzania. Bulletin 374. KIT Publishers, Amsterdam.


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4 Outsourcing agriculturaladvisory services in MaliAboubacar Traoré and Bertus Wennink

4.1 Context

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP)per capita of 232 USD (2004). Its economy is largely based on agriculture, includinglivestock and fisheries, and is the principal source of income for farmers who arepredominantly smallholders. The agricultural sector involves some 80% of the Malianworkforce and contributes some 40% to the national GDP and 75% to export earnings(2004). The major agricultural export products are cotton (for the international market),rice and livestock (for the West African, regional market). (FAO, 2004)

Since independence, national and agricultural development policies have been state-centred, without achieving the expected results. From the 1980s onward, Mali’sgovernment has applied structural adjustment measures (e.g. dismantling parastatals,privatizing state-owned societies and disengaging from price control in the agriculturalsector). After the change of regime in 1991, which led to a more democratic politicalsystem and gave another impulse to the liberalization of the agricultural sector, thegovernment continued its adjustment measures and engaged in ambitious policy andstructural reforms. This included a review of the role and functions of ministries, thedevelopment of a comprehensive rural development policy and the decentralization ofgovernance and territorial administration.



In 1992 the government drew up a Master Plan for rural development (Schéma Directeurdu Développement Rural – SDDR), which also addressed reform in the ministry ofagriculture (i) Focus on essential functions; (ii) Restructuring; and (iii) deconcentrationand decentralization. The review of the Master Plan’s implementation at the beginningof the new millennium included preparing a comprehensive, ten-year action plancompromising nine programmes, including one on agricultural services and producerorganizations (MDR, 2001, 2002). This Agricultural Service and Producer OrganizationsProgramme is supported by the World Bank (Programme d’Appui aux Services Agricoles etaux Organisations Paysannes – PASAOP). The PASAOP (2002–2005) aims to contributeto an enabling institutional environment for enhancing the provision of agriculturalservices to producers and their organizations. The programme contains four components:

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1 reforming the Ministry of Agriculture, including the decentralization of its advisory,country planning, and regulation and control services;

2 strengthening the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), amongst others, byintroducing competitive funding of demand-driven applied research;

3 reinforcing the national agricultural extension system, including contracting extensionservices to private service providers; and,

4 strengthening the Chamber of Agriculture (Chambre d’Agriculture – APECAM) andother farmers’ and producers’ unions.

Both the initial and reviewed Master Plan for rural development clearly aim to strengthenthe roles of key stakeholders in the rural development sector in general, and theagricultural sector in particular. The private sector and producers’ organizations, as well asthe municipalities (Communes), currently play a more prominent role in the agriculturalsector in order to boost its economic performance and contribution to poverty reduction.Implementing the decentralization policy and elaborating orientation law for agriculturehas further enhanced the policy and institutional environment.

The preparation of government decentralization started in 1992 and became reality withthe first nationwide municipal council elections in 1999. The municipal councils are thelowest level of devolution for decision-making in local governance. Municipalities arecomposed of several villages or groups and are governed by democratically electedcouncils that are headed by a Mayor. Public sector services such as agricultural extensionare supposed to support and advise the council as they formulate and implement localdevelopment plans. However, capacities to provide services are limited due to the lack ofqualified personnel and financial resources. Most municipalities have to obtain theirfinancial resources from taxes and levies on the administrative services they provide andfrom central government funding. Rural enterprises are still too weakly developed to be asustainable source for taxes and dues for rural municipalities (Coulibaly and Hilhorst,2004).

After an extensive consultation process, the government finally approved the AgriculturalOrientation Law (Loi d’Orientation Agricole – LOA) in September 2006. This lawprovides a legal framework for current and future rural and agricultural developmentpolicies and programmes. It aims to enhance sustainability and competitiveness of theMalian smallholder agricultural sector by promoting the transition from subsistence tomarket-oriented farming in order to contribute to food security, income generation andsound environmental management. The LOA particularly addresses the role ofsmallholder households and their member-based organizations (including the Chamberof Agriculture) as representative bodies of smallholders, as well as municipalities andagricultural services (including research, extension and training). The law states that ‘theState will guarantee the effectiveness and viability of research and advisory services allover the country’ and it ‘encourages free competition between service providers and theparticipation of beneficiaries in the conception, implementation, monitoring, evaluation,funding and control of programmes’ (République du Mali, 2006).

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Institutional reforms

The overall democratization process in Mali and the liberalization of the agricultural sectorhas seen the rise, over the last decade, of national farmers’ unions and networks. There is along tradition in Mali of farmers’ associations on a village community basis, which havebeen used by the state and parastatal societies to organize farmers, thus facilitating inputsupply and marketing of commodities at the village level, as part of the development ofsupply chains for commodities such as cotton and rice. These associations were also given arole in community development and therefore became the privileged village interlocutor fora range of rural service providers. The associations also constituted a strong basis fornational farmers’ unions that emerged during the 1990s and claimed effectiveparticipation by farmers in policy-making and other national decision-making platforms(see for example the case of the cotton farmers’ union; Docking, 2004). Other nationalfarmers’ unions, such as the Association of Professional Farmers’ Organizations (Associationdes Organisations Paysannes Professionnelles – AOPP) and the National Coordination ofFarmers’ Organizations (Coordination Nationale des organizations Paysannes – CNOP13)bring together a range of member organizations and aim to provide lobbying andadvocacy, as well as capacity strengthening services to its members (AOPP, 2006).

The Chamber of Agriculture was created in 1987 and, by law, is a public body thatprovides a platform for farmers and the government to consult each other on policyissues. It is based on universal representation (instead of member representation) and so,in principle, all farmers can voice issues through the Chamber. During the 1990s theChamber undertook several reforms in order to adapt itself to the changing politicalsystem in Mali, by creating decentralized regional Chambers and introducing adequateelection procedures to strengthen its role as a farmer-representative and farmer-ledorganization. The Chamber now covers the entire country and has started establishingoperational local level (i.e. municipality) representations. The Chamber isadministratively separate from government ministries. However, civil servants, usuallyfrom the Ministry of Agriculture, are often seconded to staff the Chambers and remainon the government payroll (Bingen, 2004).

In the cotton and rice-producing regions the gradual withdrawal of the state from serviceprovision, as well as the emergence of farmer-led initiatives, in combination withsustainable market outlets for income generation, has led to the creation of farmer servicecentres (e.g. for financial record keeping for households and associations) and networks ofsaving and credit schemes. These service centres (centres de prestations de services paysans)are now managed entirely by farmer representatives on a cooperative basis (Spinat et al.,2006). It is also in these regions that farmers’ organizations are becoming increasinglyinvolved in the planning, implementation and monitoring of agricultural research andextension services. On the one hand this was part of strategies to enhance outreach andeffectiveness of service provision, as was already the case with handling inputs andmarketing produce. However, on the other hand, agricultural research particularly aimedto enhance its responsiveness, and hence the adoption rate of technologies, by


13 See: www.cnop-mali.org/spip.php?article1 for information on AOPP and www.cnop-mali.org/ forinformation on CNOP.

decentralizing its organization and creating farmer fora (e.g. Comités Régionaux etNational des Utilisateurs – CRU and CNU), which participate in planning andmonitoring of research (Zoundi et al., 2005). These initiatives received substantialsupport through development cooperation projects and World Bank funded programmesthat preceded PASAOP.

Outside the cotton and rice-producing areas, where extension was assured throughparastatals, agricultural extension services received support for enhancing theirperformance according to the Training and Visit (T&V) approach. This support focusedentirely on the public sector and involved village farmer groups and (to a much lesserextent) farmers’ organizations in priority setting. However, upward and downwardaccountability and attention to vulnerable groups (women and others) were poorlydeveloped. In addition, little attention was paid to farmers’ groups and producers’organizations as potential partners in conducting extension activities and providingfeedback. The agricultural extension component of the PASAOP therefore particularlyaddresses the issue of enhancing relevance and the quality of extension services as part ofan overall support programme for institutional development (e.g. reform of the Ministryof Agriculture) and involving other stakeholders (i.e. the private sector and producers’organizations) in agricultural extension. It also addresses the issue of weak links betweenresearch and extension, plus their integration (World Bank, 2001).

The Ministry of Agriculture has effectively decentralized its extension and advisoryservices, which now have to fulfil new roles: coordinating and regulating service provisionat the provincial level and a more operational, supportive role at the municipality level toimplement local development plans. It also formally opened up service provision tasks toother service providers, such as the profit and non-profit private sector, as well as farmers’unions and networks. This is achieved by ‘contracting out’ a pilot project, which coversselected regions and districts, and includes the funding of contracted service providers ona call-for-proposal basis.


Under former bilateral or multilateral support programmes for agricultural extension (e.g.the introduction of the T&V approach), capacity strengthening mainly focused onintroducing extension approaches (e.g. participatory priority setting), developing skills byextension agents and enhancing the organization of public sector extension services(World Bank, 2001). Strengthening the capacities of farmers and their associations toarticulate demands, monitor and evaluate services provided, was generally achieved byprojects and programmes, that particularly targeted farmers and their organizations andaimed to enhance their participation in agricultural service provision.

Staff and technicians from non-profit private service providers (i.e. NGOs) equallybenefited from capacity strengthening activities through support projects, donor-supported training courses and workshops that also allowed them to develop theirpersonal skills concerning the use of participatory methods. This led to the establishmentof better-qualified human resources in the non-governmental sector. More recently, thedismantling of parastatals (e.g. the cotton parastatal CMDT), which were often in charge

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of agricultural extension in the commodity-producing regions, initially led to reorientingtheir activities towards their core business, while transferring their extension mandate topublic sector services. Consequently, extension staff and agents of parastatals were laidoff, therefore they joined existing international and national NGOs, or created their ownNGOs and consultancy firms to seek income-generating opportunities in thedevelopment cooperation sector.14

Under the PASAOP, capacity strengthening addresses several issues: public sectoragricultural extension service staff, particular to equip them for their new role inregulation and control; leaders and staff of producers’ organizations and, to a lesserextent, personnel working in the private (profit and non-profit) sector. With respect toproducers’ organizations, capacity strengthening by the PASAOP is managed throughanother sub-component of the programme (not the pilot project) for contracting outagricultural extension, and targets the national and sub-national organizations. It worksthrough the Chamber of Agriculture and includes training as well as providingequipment and infrastructure. The Chamber of Agriculture also manages a PASAOPgrant for capacity strengthening of local producers’ organizations. Capacity strengtheningprojects are submitted to local and regional farmer fora, which will select and approveprojects for training, communication, as well as technical and management advice.Implementation and funding modalities for capacity strengthening activities are subjectto a contract between the Chamber of Agriculture, the producers’ organization and thecontracted service provider. Under the PASAOP, capacity strengthening of privateagricultural service providers is limited to the established farmers’ service centres in thecotton-producing regions. These centres give management advice to the farmers’ andproducers’ organizations (World Bank, 2001).

4.3 Agricultural extension and advisory service system

General

The PASAOP was conceived as a programme with three phases, of which the first three-year phase aims to establish a ‘strong policy and institutional basis’ for the fullimplementation of the programme (World Bank, 2001). The first phase(2001–2003/2004) includes a pilot project for contracting out agricultural extensionservices in five selected administrative entities of Mali, including the district of thecapital, Bamako (with peri-urban agriculture), and the provinces (Régions) of Mopti,Ségou, Koulikoro and Sikasso. This case study focuses on the district (Cercle) ofBanamba, which is one the seven districts in Koulikoro province: three districts arecovered by the pilot project, and three of the nine municipalities within the district ofBanamba are affected by the pilot project.15

The pilot project aims to test institutional arrangements for contracting agriculturalextension and advisory services. These arrangements aim to:


14 Personal observations by the authors.15 In Mali, this PASAOP pilot project is known as the ‘pilot for transferring agricultural extension

services to the private sector’; in French, test de transfert de vulgarisation.

1 delegate planning and implementation of services to the provincial and local(municipality) levels;

2 stimulate participation by end-users in priority setting, planning the monitoring andevaluation of services to be provided;

3 enhance accountability mechanisms by establishing contractual relationships betweenservice providers and users; and

4 improve effectiveness/efficiency of services by introducing the element of competitionbetween service providers.

Performance indicators for the pilot project in contracting agricultural extension servicesmainly refer to: 1 satisfactory management and accounting procedures; 2 the establishment of decentralized and demand-driven agricultural extension

programmes; and 3 the preparation of a national agricultural extension strategy (World Bank, 2001).

More implicitly, the pilot project also intends to enhance the outreach of agriculturalextension and advisory services by implicating the private sector in service provision.Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and its department for agricultural extension arefocusing on their core business of coordination, regulation, monitoring and evaluation,while increasing the involvement of the (profit and non-profit) private sector in providingextension and advisory services. The institutional stakeholders in Mali’s agriculturalextension and advisory system are: village communities and producers’ organizations,which include the clients/users of these services; local governments (i.e. municipalities);the public sector agricultural extension service (at provincial and district levels); and thecontracted, private sector service providers.

It is worth noting that the PASAOP also aims to enhance the continuity between researchand extension by supporting the development of one system of programming andfunding of agricultural research and extension (on a demand-driven, competitive basis).During the implementation of PASAOP’s first phase, a system of competitive funding ofagricultural research was developed and is currently functioning under the supervision ofthe Malian National Committee for Agricultural Research (CNRA). It comprises a fundfor strategic and applied research, which is accessible to a shortlist of established publicsector research institutes, and a fund for adaptive research. The latter fund is also open toprivate sector service providers. The allocation of funds, as well as the monitoring offunded activities, is co-managed by Regional Research and Extension Committees(CRRVA) in which agricultural extension and producer organizations are represented(Wennink, 2003).


According to the initial approach adopted by the pilot project, the contracting clients forproviding extension and advisory services would be local governments (i.e. municipalities)and producers’ organizations. However, local government capacities are still weak (e.g.availability of human and financial resources), while their mandate for local developmentis increasingly taking shape through learning from experience. Producers’ organizations in

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Mali are rooted in a state-based co-opted tradition, enriched over the last decade by non-state initiatives, and currently representing a wide array of organizations.

Villages that can benefit from the pilot project, and thus can express their needs forservices to be provided, are being identified and selected according to a set of technical,social, financial and geographical criteria. Technical criteria include: being open to newtechnologies (i.e. ongoing adoption of new technologies), availability of infrastructureand equipment (e.g. for storage and processing); and potential for crop diversification (aspart of promising supply- and value-chains). The social criteria mainly refer to the level ofliteracy and ‘social cohesion’ within the village community, which is considered essentialin creating community relays for successful dissemination and hence adoption of newtechnologies (Reid and Salmen, 2000). The financial criteria take account of the capacityof community-based groups to mobilize funds and they explicitly mention the ‘level oftax payments’ by the village – an important source of income for the relatively ‘young’municipalities.

The demand for agricultural extension and advisory services is organized throughcommunity-based groups; either through the existing ‘contact groups’, which werecreated under the Training and Visit (T&V) system, or other village-community-basedfarmers’ associations or producers’ cooperatives. Extension agents help these groups todefine priorities for extension and advisory services. The extension agents, who thus playa facilitating role, are asked to ensure that the consulted groups include farmers who growspecific crops (with a potential for marketing), as well as women and young farmers. Thisis reminiscent of the T&V contact groups. However, there is no particular attention paidto the diversity among farmer households (in terms of ‘wealth’) or access to, or controlover, production factors.

Since the pilot considers municipalities or producers’ organizations with a certaingeographical scope as the main client contracting party, the municipality generallysynthesizes the demands that have been identified at the village level. Municipalities thusoccupy a key position in the system since they: 1 decide on the village communities that can effectively participate in the outsourcing

pilot (according to the aforementioned criteria); and 2 elaborate the demands for services that will be submitted to the provincial level for

contracting service providers (see 4.4).


The demands for services are addressed by both the public (the agricultural extensionservice at the Ministry of Agriculture) and private sectors. The Ministry of Agricultureprovides extension services through staff who are employed by the district extensionservice for both advice and land-use management, which in turn is represented through asmall ‘antenna’ (i.e. one or more field agents) at the municipality level. In general, privateagricultural extension services in Mali are mainly provided through: 1 parastatals, which either have a mandate to provide extension and advisory services for

rural and agricultural development, or focus on a specific commodity and/or farming

135Outsourcing agricultural advisory services in Mali

households (such as CMDT in the cotton growing zone and the Office du Nigeragency in the irrigation scheme for rice); and

2 private non-profit service providers (e.g. NGOs), which are often contracted byprojects; and

3 (to a lesser extent) by private companies, in relation to the supply of agriculturalinputs.

As previously mentioned, producers’ organizations are also increasingly involved in serviceprovision (particularly in regions where commodity supply chain development allowsstrengthening of their role), though not exclusively in the field of extension and advice.Their focus is on management and accountancy by village-based producers’ associations.

Under this PASAOP pilot project, the Ministry of Agriculture seeks to use the resourcesavailable for outsourcing to optimize village coverage by extension service providers,whether they be from the public or private sector. Therefore, although not subject to thecall for proposal procedures, district services are also required to establish performancecontracts with municipalities and producers’ organizations in villages that are notbenefiting from the pilot project.

In Mali, village community-based organizations have always played, and continue to play,an important role in conveying information between community members and outsidestructures. For example, in the cotton (southern Mali) and rice (inland delta of the riverNiger) cultivation areas, the successful producers’ associations were grafted onto thetraditional mutual aid groups and therefore became acknowledged communityrepresentations (Spinat et al., 2006). Their success was also reinforced because they werethe main channel through which agricultural inputs were accessible or the marketing ofproduce was organized. These associations were fully implicated in the extension andadvisory systems established by the parastatals, either for prioritizing service needs ortraining-of-trainers approaches, which in turn were accompanied by literacy trainingprogrammes.

In other regions of Mali, the public sector tried to establish similar approaches, thoughwith limited success, since the established village farmers’ associations often lacked asound economic basis (i.e. production and marketing of a commodity). The increasingrole of the private non-profit sector (mainly NGOs) in rural development, either throughtheir own (often small) projects or through their contracts with (larger) projects, led to awider array of participatory approaches, including the creation of farmers’ extensiongroups, and a focus on developing farming group capacities in order to enhance their‘service role’ to village community members.

The types of services provided under the pilot project for contracting out agriculturalextension services include: information, facilitating demonstration (e.g. smalldemonstration plots), and training of both technical and managerial issues. Technicalissues concerned crop production, post-harvest handling and animal husbandry, whilemanagerial issues covered the management of farm enterprises and farmers’ organizations.

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Particular attention was also given to the establishment and formal registration of villagefarmers’ associations, cooperatives, etc.


The ministerial department for agricultural extension and advice sees its role changingfrom implementation to coordination, regulation and control. On the one hand thischange is strongly influenced by the privatization of parastatals, whereby agriculturalextension services are transferred to the ministry. On the other hand, the department andits branches need to reposition themselves within a context of increasing ‘privatization’ ofagricultural services, provision of both goods and services, and decentralization ofterritorial administration. Therefore, the national and provincial levels of the publicsector agricultural extension service now focus on policy-making, as well as coordinatingand monitoring policy implementation, while the local level concentrates onimplementation (i.e. informing, training and giving advice to farmers, farmers’ groupsand rural communities). The local level services increasingly try to comply with policyorientations that are defined by the municipality authorities.

With respect to contracting private sector service providers, one of the first steps taken bythe public sector agricultural extension services was to determine the procedures fordefining the need for services (e.g. roles of the different levels), the call for, and selectionof, proposals (e.g. criteria for selecting proposals), contracting service providers andmonitoring the provision of services (Ministère du Développement Rural, 2002). Sinceenhanced responsiveness and accountability were among the key reasons for contractingthese services, the public sector agricultural extension service decided to submit itself tothese same principles as the private service providers it was contracting. However, itremains to be seen whether the same principles will have the same effects, e.g. beingsanctioned through exclusion from offering services, and thus from earning revenues.

Before the pilot project started, producers’ organizations (essentially village community-based groups) and other farmers’ groups were already regularly consulted by agriculturalextension agents to identify their priority needs. Under the pilot project, farmers andtheir organizations saw their roles widened through their representation in the municipalfora to assess and select submitted proposals, and their voice was heard in evaluating theservices provided at the village level (see Section 4.4).

Local government authorities (i.e. municipalities) are fairly new to the agriculturalextension and advisory service system. As elected bodies to which decision-making onlocal, rural development has been delegated, they are given a role within the system ofrepresenting service users as well as coordinating within the larger frame of localdevelopment.

The non-profit private sector (i.e. NGOs) already plays an important role in serviceprovision to farmers and their organizations, either through their own (donor-funded)projects or through contracting by projects. However, under the outsourcing pilotproject, for the first time ever the private non-profit sector had to accept that it was being


contracted by the public sector on a rather large scale and under a governmentprogramme.

Table 1 Roles of key stakeholders in the outsourcing of agricultural extensionservices

Structure Representatives of TasksVillage committee Village community authorities Participatory identification of of beneficiaries Farmers: men, women and demands for services

youngsters Monitoring and evaluationContracted service provider

Municipal Coordination Municipal council. Local farmers’ Aggregation of village demands.committee organizations Proposal selection. Contracting.

Municipal agricultural extension Disbursement.officer Monitoring and evaluationOther stakeholders (optional)

District Technical District agricultural extension Training of extension agentssupport committee service. Other stakeholders (optional) Monitoring and supervisionDistrict Steering Municipal councils and district Mobilization of fundscommittee council. District Commissionner Evaluation and supervision

(Préfet du Cercle)District agricultural extension officerChamber of AgricultureOther stakeholders (optional)Research Users Committee (CRU)

Provincial Technical Provincial agricultural services Monitoring and supervisionsupport committee Chamber of Agriculture

Other stakeholders (optional)Provincial Steering Provincial council Evaluation and supervisioncommittee Provincial Commissioner

(Haut Commissaire)Provincial agricultural servicesChamber of AgricultureResearch Users Committee (CRU)

Sourcer: This study.


Procurement

The pilot project aimed to: 1 adapt the existing agricultural extension and advisory system to the decentralized

context through an effective implication of local government authorities; 2 increase the responsiveness and accountability of agricultural services by enhancing

farmers’ participation, not only in priority setting; and 3 improve the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural extension services by involving

the private sector on a competitive basis.

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The outsourcing pilot therefore primarily focused on the way services were provided andmanaged, rather than on their contents and approaches, or effects and impact.

This implicit (or explicit) choice meant that the participatory identification anddefinition of demands generated problems and constraints, mostly concerningagricultural production and productivity, to a lesser extent in organizing farmers aroundagricultural production and marketing, and almost negligibly to value-addition andmarketing issues. Potential solutions to tackle problems and constraints were alsoidentified, in terms of activities to be undertaken, as well as indicators for expectedoutcomes and impacts (e.g. percentage increase in crop yields). Both theproblems/constraints and solutions/foreseen activities are the key elements in the terms ofreference for (future) service providers that respond to the call for proposals.

The identification and definition of demands takes place at the village level. Thesedemands are aggregated at the municipality level by local authorities, in collaborationwith the local and district agricultural extension service. In practice, this leads to anaggregated list of demands that are regrouped according to sub-sectors (e.g. crops,livestock), though still mentioning the villages concerned. This list of demands needs tobe validated by the municipality council, since co-funding by the municipality isrequired. No information was given concerning any links between the need foragricultural extension and advisory services in a given area and local development plans.It should be noted that, as yet, not every municipality has completed this type of plan.

These demands (per municipality) are then submitted to the provincial level, where theyform the technical terms of reference for the services to be provided and form the centre-piece of the call for proposals to be launched by the provincial agricultural extensionservice. A regional technical committee (comité technique régional), including representativesof the public sector services for rural development, prepares the call for proposals.

In order to enhance smoothness of the process, the agricultural extension serviceinventoried potential private sector extension service providers that were shortlisted toreceive an invitation to submit proposals. Criteria for shortlisting service providersinclude: area of intervention; professional experience; intervention approaches used;availability of human and material resources; geographical coverage; legal status; andfinancial resources (proxy bank account). The majority of shortlisted organizations areNGOs or so-called ‘economic interest groups’ (Groupements d’Intérêt Economique – GIE);the latter often being created by former extension agents who used to work forparastatals.

The provincial agricultural extension service contacts the shortlisted organizations (byletter) and invites them to submit a proposal. The ‘call for proposals’ dossier for eachmunicipality contains: 1 an invitation to submit a proposal; 2 instructions on the presentation and contents of the proposal (including the criteria

that will be used to assess and select proposals); 3 a format letter for submitting the proposal; 4 format for the contract;


5 the terms of reference (per village community: constraints to be addressed; solutionsproposed; fields, cattle etc. available for demonstration and training; plus expectedoutcomes and effects);

6 format for the budget and its items; 7 format for presenting unit costs per item; and a8 list of the other (usually nine) shortlisted, competing service providers.

The submitted proposal should contain: a separate technical proposal showing theoriginal terms of reference, the methodological approach taken, references of the serviceprovider and the curriculum vitae of the proposed personnel; plus a financial proposal,including a budget according to the format. The proposals are assessed and selectedaccording to three sets of criteria: administrative, technical and financial. The technicalcriteria are: 1 presentation of the proposal; 2 understanding/interpretation of the terms of reference; 3 track record of the service provider; 4 specific track record with respect to agricultural extension; 5 qualifications of proposed personnel; 6 methodological approach; and 7 planning (in time) for providing these services.

Although the call for proposals is launched by the provincial agricultural extensionservice, proposals are assessed at the municipality level. It should be emphasized that callsfor proposals are formally issued per municipality. A committee, appointed by theDistrict Commissioner (Préfet du Cercle) and including representatives of the municipalauthorities, local farmers’ organizations and the agricultural extension service, isresponsible for assessing the proposals. Assessment and selection is a two-step process: 1 selection of the best technical proposals (scoring/ranking according to criteria); and 2 assessment of the financial proposals.

It should be noted that one provider can provide services in a maximum of twomunicipalities. The selected proposals are subject to contract between the municipalcouncil and the selected service provider. Tripartite contracts are preferred, which alsoinvolve representatives of the beneficiaries such as farmers’ organizations. The contractsdetail aspects such as duration (a maximum of 90 days), disbursement modalities andreporting, monitoring and evaluation procedures.

Funding and costing

Funding of the contracted services is shared between the pilot project (WorldBank/PASAOP funds) and local governments. Funds support fees, field agent salaries,travelling costs, daily subsistence allowance for field agents, office stationary and inputs,as well as small equipment for training and demonstration. Investments for infrastructureor transport are not supported by the pilot project fund.

The pilot project was expected to fund up to 80% of the contract costs, with themunicipality paying at least 20%. Disbursement modalities were negotiated between the

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service provider, the pilot project and the municipality according to the activities to beundertaken by the service provider. Co-funding, as well as disbursement bymunicipalities, was considered essential for enhancing ownership of the process andsustainability of the system. However, several municipalities had problems paying theirfinancial contributions. According to data available for the Banamba area, they managedto contribute only 10-15%. In fact arrangements were made to place a value on the ‘in-kind’ contributions made by farmers and village farmer groups and consider them‘financial contributions’.

The problem of municipalities’ financial contributions is related to their capacity tomobilize funds through taxes and levies on entrepreneurial activities. This poses theproblem of how municipalities can effectively contribute to local economic developmentthrough orienting, contracting and funding agricultural services.

Implementation

The selected provider for agricultural extension and advisory services is fully responsiblefor implementing the proposed activities. It is therefore required – and one of the criteriafor assessing and selecting proposals – that agents work closely with the beneficiary villagecommunities, and particularly with the farmers’ groups and those involved in trainingand demonstration activities. If a village, which has been initially selected to benefit fromthe project, is not covered by the activities of a private service provider, it benefits fromdemonstration and training activities by an agent from the district or antenna agriculturalextension service. In both cases, a performance contract (contrat de performance) is signedbetween the (public or private) agent and one of the beneficiary village farmers’ groups atthe start of implementation. This contract defines the ‘commitments’ (‘engagements’) byboth sides and includes elements such as: (for the farmers’ group) further definition ofthe technical issues to be addressed, provision of land/plot or animals for demonstrationpurposes as well as inputs, and discussion and exchange of information and experienceswith the agents during his/her field visits; and (for the agent) help to design and set upthe demonstration, organize monitoring according to a visiting schedule that has beenagreed with the farmers’ group, and give recommendations to the farmers duringmonitoring visits. A private service provider must also ensure the effective employment ofagents in the area, while the public agricultural extension service already has agentsstationed locally.

This approach to organizing extension and advice for a farmer group around smalldemonstration plots is clearly similar to the T&V system. In practice, it mostly dependson the agricultural service provider and its field agent whether or not this training anddemonstration evolves towards exchange and learning, rather than demonstration andtraining. However, the overall M&E setup of the pilot, with different administrativelevels playing a supervisory role and monitoring indicators defined in the documents (e.g.contracts for service provision) are mainly related to inputs (activities) and, to a lesserextent, to outputs and hardly ever to outcomes and impacts. The following table isreminiscent of the T&V approach, with several layers of supervisory structures. However,the initial call for proposal documents (i.e. terms of reference) provided both outcomeand impact indicators.


The beneficiary farmers’ group is responsible for monitoring the performance of theextension agent, mainly during field visits. Monitoring is further organized throughmonthly field visits by the service provider, which also provides a progress report, and themunicipality and district agricultural extension services. Field visit and progress reportsare the main inputs for the municipality (as one of the contracting parties) to monitorimplementation of the activities. In practice, the village committee of beneficiaries(Comité de l’Organisation des Bénéficiaires Villageois – OBV) has usually been created forthis purpose, plus the municipality and the agricultural extension service, which areeffectively involved in monitoring and evaluation. The elected municipal authorities (i.e.the Mayor) have the formal power to terminate contracts, although little is known aboutany such practices.

4.5 Performance of outsourcing

Effectiveness and efficiency

The performance of the outsourcing used in this case study has been approached fromtwo angles. As a pilot project, its performance is assessed by the number of municipalitiesthat are effectively involved in the pilot and the number of contracts that have beenconcluded with service providers. The data available indicates that the pilot waseffectively implemented in the majority of pilot municipalities initially targeted. In fact,some 280 municipalities (out of the 703 in Mali) have been involved in the pilot bycontracting agricultural extension service providers; and some 10,175 extension agents(nationwide) signed performance contracts (World Bank, 2007). Therefore, it increasedoutreach of services through an improved coverage, although this was not an explicit aimof the pilot. In the Banamba area, output indicators (e.g. number of villages affected,farmers reached and demonstration plots established) were fully achieved. The pilotproject, as such, does not provide any mechanisms for assessing effectiveness and/orefficiency of public or private agricultural extension services. This was also not the initialaim of the programme.

According to interviews in the Banamba area, the key stakeholders agree that systemeffectiveness has been augmented through the effective reorientation of the roles playedby the public and private agricultural extension service providers and farmers’organizations. It is acknowledged that the private sector brings in new knowledge as wellas new methods of addressing the needs and demands expressed by farmers. The publicsector extension service, at the provincial and district levels, now focuses on supervisionand monitoring. However, it becomes the default service provider in those cases wherethe private sector failed to cover the targeted beneficiary village communities. Localfarmers’ organizations also saw their roles strengthened through their participation inidentifying needs and demands for services, as well as monitoring the performance by theservice provider.

However, the role of farmers’ organizations as clients and service users was particularlylimited to the village level. The main weakness in institutionalizing the client-orientation,demand-driven and downward-accountability approaches is the lack of formal, electedrepresentation in village farmers’ groups at the municipality, district and provincial levels.

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On the one hand, multi-tier farmers’ networks with an acknowledged representative andinterest-defence role are still being developed in Mali (outside the cotton and rice sub-sectors). In the pilot project, the district and provincial branches of the Chamber ofAgriculture are given this role, though according to several interviewees its legitimacy isstill an ongoing development. In fact, the Chamber is more a platform for policyconsultations than for orienting agricultural services. On the other hand, in the absenceof farmer-led networks, rules and procedures for representation of, and feedback to,village farmer groups by municipality and district levels are apparently lacking.

As for farmers, the ultimate beneficiaries of the services provided, they are positive aboutthe system. Firstly, their participation allows them to define which issues agriculturalservices should address. However, both the type of service to be provided and theprovider are being defined at other levels without any formal representative implicationof farmers. Another issue concerns whether farmers’ needs and demands have beenadequately analysed to provide the appropriate services. The information on the type ofservice (e.g. the approach used to inform and train farmers) required is still too limitedto take full advantage of opening up the system to new approaches and technologies.Farmers feel that focusing on relevant issues and taking account of the diversity betweenvillages and within village communities are improving the outcome of the agriculturalextension and advisory services. However, farmers feel these impacts could be enhancedby providing accompanying services, such as credit facilities, input supply and marketingfacilities. Secondly, the general contracting modalities foresee regular visits by extensionagents to the village farmers’ groups, which are highly appreciated by farmers in the lightof a retreating public sector. Thirdly, farmers monitor the performance of the extensionagents and feel that they have a say in contracting services, although this opportunity(e.g. terminating contracts) has not been fully utilized.

Under the pilot project of outsourcing agricultural extension and advisory services, thelocal government (i.e. municipality) becomes a key stakeholder in the planning andmonitoring system; it is now a key contracting party. This is fully in line with overalldecentralization policy in Mali, which gives decision-making power to municipalities inlocal economic development, which in turn is largely based on agriculture. In additionto the aforementioned problems faced by municipalities concerning human and financialresources, stakeholder representatives interviewed feel that efficiency of the outsourcingsystem could be strengthened through: 1 enhancing local government capacities to develop local agricultural policies (including

market access), which should provide a programmatic framework for agriculturalservices; and

2 effectively representing different interest groups within the agricultural sector andresponding to their needs and demands.

With respect to this last issue, a key question remains: should local governments be thefarmers’ main representative, instead of their organizations, when managing demand-driven agricultural services; e.g. aggregation and validation of demands, or contractingservice providers.


Sustainability

Sustainability remains a major issue. Establishing an institutionalized management systemfor outsourcing agricultural advisory services, as per the pilot project under the PASAOP,has been achieved. Systems and procedures have been developed, applied andconsequently adapted to prepare for scaling up the management system. However,complete achievement of institutional sustainability depends on far more than justmanagement procedures, and includes the organizational strengthening of the keystakeholders (particularly the farmers’ organizations) to play their role as clients and usersat different levels of strategic orientation and decision-making. More importantly, theMalian agricultural innovation policy framework seems to be ‘lagging behind’, and is stillbased on the ‘transfer of technology’ approach. It apparently fails to take full advantage ofopening the system to the private (profit and non-profit) sector, which is a source of newknowledge and experiences, and can also provide innovation triggers by linkingsmallholder farmers with markets.

The issue of financial sustainability has not yet been resolved. Experience indicates thatco-funding, when effective, was either below target or was assured through valuing in-kind contributions from village communities. This issue is linked to the question of therole played by the public/private sectors and producers’ organizations in providingagricultural services to smallholder farmers in low-potential agricultural areas that are notparticularly suitable for bulk supply of commodities. The Malian success stories (e.g.cotton and rice) show that agricultural research and extension services can make animpact when they are linked and coordinated with input supply, rural financial servicesand market outlets (see, for example, Zoundi et al., 2005).

Concluding remarks

The pilot project for outsourcing agricultural extension services in Mali did not take fulladvantage of the opportunities provided by involving the private sector. Firstly, despitethe implicit intention to support the development of supply- and value-chains (e.g.criteria for selecting beneficiary villages), service needs were identified and analysed froman agronomic perspective, without linking with access to markets. Secondly, thePASAOP’s goal was to stimulate a shift from the linear technology-transfer approach to amore network-based Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) approach.However, practice remains largely based on the former approach, with ‘relicts’ from theT&V approach. The question is whether the AKIS-inspired regional research andextension committees (CRRVA; see Section 4.3) are sufficiently linked with, and builton, similar multi-stakeholder institutions at the lower levels (e.g. farmer field schools,instead of ‘contact groups’). Funding mechanisms and management procedures are alsostill separated (and different) for research and extension services, and may hampereffective links.

Producers’ organizations are given a key role within the system. However, the outreach ofPASAOP’s related capacity strengthening component to the lower levels of producerorganizations (i.e. village community-based organizations) remains unclear, particularlywith respect to demand-driven and responsive agricultural services. Furthermore, the role

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of beneficiary (village) farmer groups in planning and monitoring services is limited,while farmer-led institutions within the system (at other levels) are still weak. In our viewthis is related to the option of dealing with the Chamber of Agriculture. Capacitystrengthening of farmers’ organizations is being dealt with by another PASAOP sub-component, which leads to a multitude of structures. This requires effective coordinationmechanisms to enhance synergy between activities by the various sub-components.

References

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Bingen, J., 2004. A comparative review of multi-stakeholder arrangements for representing farmers inagricultural development programmes and policy-making in Sub-Saharan Africa. FAO, Rome.

Coulibaly, A., and T. Hilhorst, 2004. Implementing decentralization in Mali: the experience of two ruralmunicipalities in southern Mali. Issue paper no. 127. Drylands Programme. IIED, London.

Docking, T.W., 2004. ‘Influence on civil society in Mali: the case of the cotton farmers’ union SYCOV’.In: Igoe, J., and T. Kelsall (2004), Between a rock and a hard place: African NGOs, donors and thestate in Africa, pp. 165–194. Carolina Academic Press, Durham.

FAO, 2004. Mali. FAO Statistical Yearbook. Country Profiles. Ministère du Développement Rural, 2001. Schéma Directeur du Secteur du Développement Rural (SDDR).

Actualisation 2000. MDR, Bamako).Ministère du Développement Rural, 2002. PASAOP Composante appui au système national de

vulgarization agricole. Manuel de procedure du Test de transfert de la vulgarisation. Première version.MDR, Bamako.

Reid, C., and L. Salmen, 2000. Understanding social capital. Agricultural extension in Mali: trust andsocial cohesion. Social Capital Initiative Working Paper No. 22. Social Development Department,World Bank, Washington.

République du Mali, 2006. Loi No. 06-045/du 5 Septembre 2006 portant Loi d’Orientation Agricole.Journal Officiel de la République du Mali, Spécial No. 6, September 2006.

Spinat, J.-B., B. Traoré, and A.-S. Saywell, 2006. Appui et conseil aux organisations paysannes en zoneOffice du Niger. Du projet centre de prestations de services aux « Faranfasi So ». Traverses No. 16.IRAM/Groupe Initiatives, Paris.

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About the authors and editors

Clesensio Tizikara, Competitive Grant Scheme Research Manager for the Associationfor Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), basedin Entebbe, formerly Head of the Planning Unit of the National Agricultural ResearchOrganization in Uganda.E-mail: [email protected]

Prisca Ndagire, Graduate Intern with the National Agricultural Advisory Services(NAADS) in Uganda.E-mail: [email protected]

Francis Byekwaso, Manager of the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of theNational Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) in Uganda.E-mail: [email protected]

Dan Kisauzi, Director of the Nkoola Institutional Development Associates (NIDA) inUganda.E-mail: [email protected]

Custodio Mucavele, IFAD Country Officer for Mozambique, assisting in nationalprogramme development and implementation, and actively participating in related policydialogue and performing a general function of liaison and coordination, which includesmaintaining contacts with government and development partners. Before 2003 he wasthe Deputy National Director of Rural Extension within the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development.E-mail: [email protected]

Peniel Mwasha, Livestock Consultant with Commonwealth Secretariat in Grenada.Former key Livestock Officer in the National Agriculture and Livestock ExtensionRehabilitation Project (NALERP), Coordinator of Pilot Initiatives Programme under theNational Agricultural Extension Programme, NAEP, Assistant Director LivestockExtension Service until 2007.E-mail: [email protected]

Aboubacar Traoré is a field specialist in economic rural development in Mali. Currentlyhe is in charge of Monitoring and evaluation of a multi-stakeholder programme oneconomic development (DERK) in Kouikoro, Mali.E-mail: [email protected]

147About the authors and editors

Willem Heemskerk is a research and development management and organizationspecialist. His specific experience is in the field of facilitating demand-driven and client-oriented research and advisory services. He is a Sustainable Economic DevelopmentAdvisor of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam.E-mail: [email protected]

Suzanne Nederlof is an agricultural innovation and institutional development specialistwith a special focus on the role of farmers’ organizations. She is a Sustainable EconomicDevelopment Advisor with the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.E-mail: [email protected]

Bertus Wennink is a specialist in natural resource management and agricultural researchand extension management, with a special focus on the role of farmers’ organizations. Heis Sustainable Economic Development Advisor with the Royal Tropical Institute inAmsterdam.E-mail: [email protected]

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Bulletins of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)The KIT Bulletin Series deals with currentthemes in international development. It is amulti-disciplinary forum for scientists, policymakers, managers and development advisors inagriculture, natural resource managements,health, culture, history and anthropology topresent their work. These fields reflect the broadscope of KIT’s activities.

KIT Development Policy & PracticeKIT Development Policy & Practice is the RoyalTropical Institute’s main department for inter-national development. Our aim is to contributeto reducing poverty and inequality in the worldand to support sustainable development. Wecarry out research and provide advisory servicesand training in order to build and shareknowledge on a wide range of developmentissues. We work in partnership with highereducation, knowledge and research institutes,non-governmental and civil society organizations,and responsible private enterprises in countriesaround the world.

Contact informationRoyal Tropical Institute (KIT)KIT Development Policy & PracticeKIT PublishersPO Box 950011090 HA AmsterdamThe NetherlandsTelephone: +31 (0)20 568 8458Fax: +31 (0)20 568 8444Email: [email protected], [email protected]: www.kit.nl/development

© 2008 KIT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This is an open-access publication distributedunder the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricteduse, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original author and sourceare credited.

Edited by Barbara ShaplandCover and design Studio Berry Slok, Amsterdam,The NetherlandsCover photo Willem HeemskerkPrinting High Trade NV, Zwolle, The Netherlands

Correct citationHeemskerk, W., S. Nederlof and B. Wennink(2008) Outsourcing agricultural advisory services.Enhancing rural innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa.Bulletin 380. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.

KeywordsAgricultural advisory services outsourcing, Ruralinnovation, Public-private partnerships

ISBN 978 906832 6468ISSN 0922-7911NUR 600/940

Colophon

Other publications in the AgriculturalInnovation Systems Series

• Heemskerk, W., N. Lema, D. Guindo,C. Schouten, Z. Semgalawe, H. Verkuijl, B.de Steenhuijsen Piters and P. Penninkhoff.2003. Un guide pour la recherche agricolerégie par la demande. Approche Gestion deRecherche Orientée Client (AGROC).IER, Mali; DRT, Tanzanie; et KIT,Amsterdam. KIT-Publishers, Amsterdam.

• Heemskerk, W., N. Lema, D. Guindo,C. Schouten, Z. Semgalawe, H. Verkuijl, B.de Steenhuijsen Piters and P. Penninkhoff.2003. A guide to demand-driven agriculturalresearch. The Client-Oriented ResearchManagement Approach (CORMA). IER,Mali; DRT, Tanzania; et KIT, Amsterdam.KIT-Publishers, Amsterdam.

• Heemskerk, W. en B. Wennink. 2004.Building social capital for agriculturalinnovation. Experiences with farmer groupsin Sub-Saharan Africa. Bulletin 368. KIT-Publishers, Amsterdam.

• Heemskerk, W. and B. Wennink. 2005.Stakeholder-driven funding mechanisms foragricultural innovation. Case studies fromSub-Saharan Africa. Bulletin 373. KIT-Publishers, Amsterdam.

• Wennink, B. and W. Heemskerk (eds.),2006Farmers’ organizations and agriculturalinnovation. Case studies from Benin,Rwanda and Tanzania. Bulletin 374. KIT-Publishers, Amsterdam.

• Wennink, B., S. Nederlof andW. Heemskerk (eds.). 2007. Access of thepoor to agricultural services: the role offarmers’ organizations in social inclusion.Bulletin 376. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.

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